by Nicole Locke
Only a moment to close the door. To absorb his rapid heartbeat and mutinous breath. To brace against the latch and pray it caught him in his free fall because his legs were too weak to hold him. Only a moment to know with certainty his body was no longer his own.
It was hers.
And he knew he’d don those ill-fated wax wings over and over again to reach where he shouldn’t. For if he was able to touch such purity, they were both doomed to fall to their deaths.
* * *
Aliette delayed leaving the bathing chamber. The steam and torches encased the room in warmth and light, and the little space held a certain peace she had never had before. Even Grace, wrapped in clean blankets, was sleeping securely in a basket, as if she felt it, too.
She knew it was a temporary peace because outside the door was an enigmatic man who couldn’t possibly mean her well. Except for the three in her acquired family, no one ever did.
He demanded she play a role that she had no intention of playing. That she must be a mother to a child. Even if she trusted such a role, her inexperience would give away that Grace wasn’t hers.
Whom did she belong to? He denied the child was his. If she took this as truth, then this child was another victim in a scheme she didn’t understand. There was no reason a stranger would kidnap a child and her.
Who was he and why surround himself with mercenaries? A powerful man who expected to get his way and one she couldn’t trust. She never trusted anyone, yet there were contradictions she was already aware of.
Because he guarded a child; because, though dark, he was beautiful, he enticed. Aliette shook herself.
She must not forget how much he took away from her! How she longed to return to her family, who must be frantic. She prayed Gabriel stayed at the house. For while she donned fine clothes, watch guards could be hauling them to gaol.
Gabriel needed her far worse than this child who was secure in a house that held rooms full of books, gold, candles and a lit fire. So much bounty and wealth to assault her senses, and yet, Grace was hungry and thirsty. Wealth, but there appeared no one who knew what to do for her.
Oddly and yet more contradictions—there were no servants, only hardened, scarred men who had brought hot water to fill three tubs. One to bathe with scented soap, the other to immerse herself and rinse. A smaller one all for Grace. Another man, missing fingers, carried linens and clothing for her and Grace. None of them were the ones who had brought her here. None of them spoke, though she begged for answers.
At any other point in her life, she’d take advantage and amass the food and clothing before she was thrown on the streets again, but there were too many questions here to trust any of it.
Reluctantly, knowing she couldn’t stay enclosed in this room forever, Aliette lifted the basket holding Grace, tucked it against her hip and opened the door.
She expected the landing to be empty, instead, her captor leaned against the opposite wall in the darkest corner. Leaning, but not resting. Still, but not passive. He was Darkness, readying himself. But he said nothing. He moved not a finger.
Alerted to the danger, Aliette froze. Something had changed in his countenance since he left her. Maybe he had changed his mind at her usefulness, or maybe he meant her harm. For he held himself like a sword about to strike. Taut, vibrating, cold steel.
Another part of him was hot, rolling, seething, sweeping away what little peace and safety she’d hoarded and replacing it with something else.
Fear and want. Wariness and longing.
If she spoke, if she moved, she wasn’t certain which aspect of the man would react, so she did the only thing she could. Wait, as he was doing.
She knew immediately she had failed at such an endeavour. It had nothing to do with the fact that her usual reaction would be to charge forward and everything to do with how he was looking at her.
Elemental. All encompassing. As if she wasn’t fully dressed and carrying a child-laden basket. He wasn’t aloof with disdain, as Darkness should be. He gazed at her as a man. She’d seen lust before in others, accidentally encountered the act performed more times than she could count.
This wasn’t the same. This time, she wasn’t a child, she wasn’t broken and on the streets. And this man...this man wasn’t like any she’d met before.
A cruel beauty because he shouldn’t be able to lure her. She’d avoided Darkness, avoided all men, but she couldn’t escape him. It became undeniable and the longer they stood in the silence they created, the longer she felt the pull. The need to step closer to him, to break the quiet in another way, whatever way he wanted.
His chest expanded on an inhale, held as if holding his breath. And she could no longer resist. A step towards him...another until she was caught in the current of his mesmeric grey eyes. If possible, they darkened further, before his lashes lowered to shade any telling emotion. But she could feel it. Some...need, something gripping. Another step. Not so far now.
She tracked the distance with her eyes, with the feel of him almost near enough. What was he trying to tell her? She licked her lower lip to part them, to ask the question.
His breath hitched, he blinked hard, then Darkness swirled and drew away. She froze mid-stride.
A moment passed and then another while he held still. She was never good at waiting. Bracing herself, she headed towards the stair.
‘She sleeps again?’ he asked behind her.
Stopping on the top stair, Aliette didn’t turn. Grace slept, her black hair no more than fluff against the whiteness of the bedding. It was easier to look at the child and not at a man whom she was to call Sir.
‘A little food, a careful wash in water, she’d fallen asleep while I dressed her,’ she said, addressing the staircase.
‘Is she meant to be sleeping?’
Aliette had never cared for a child, but she’d seen others. ‘They sleep when they sleep.’
When she glanced over her shoulder, he was no longer leaning against the wall. His gaze was avid on the child, his lips parted to ask questions. No, not questions. He was concerned. Yet he didn’t make demands.
Watching him carefully, she said, ‘Can you carry her?’
He had the basket in hand before she was prepared. His eyes soaked up the sleeping infant. Surely this concern was of a parent for his child? If she had a child, someone who needed and loved her, she’d announce it to the world. It made no sense why he would hide his relation.
Tensing as if he realised her scrutiny, he shot her a look. ‘I’ll show you to your room.’
Her entire being wanted to demand release, to plead that he find someone else. She didn’t trust why he stole her from the streets. And she more than didn’t understand her reaction to him on the landing. Why he affected her so, and why she felt the need to be near him...to touch him. In the past she’d avoided Darkness. Now she should be fleeing.
However, this man had no weaknesses, he’d tell her nothing and, if she ran, she wouldn’t get far. And Grace needed her, so down the staircase she followed him into the large open courtyard and down another staircase that went underground.
One, two steps and a familiar fissure of fear trickled through her. The stone around her was different, thicker, colder and felt like ice under her feet. The fireplace in the hallway was unlit, as were most of the torches.
This hallway revealed doors to rooms showing beds. But her captor did not stop at these that contained natural sunlight from the lone staircase. Instead, he grabbed a torch and walked the narrow passage to the very end and opened a door there.
The air inside was unused with a smell of damp and cold unforgiving stone. No windows. No light or avenue to escape.
‘The other rooms are occupied,’ he said, his voice devoid of any emotion, the heated tautness of his gaze completely gone. ‘This house is not large. The other side that you have seen are my quarters, these are for thos
e who serve me.’
‘I am...to serve you?’ Refusing to reveal her vulnerability to the dark, to the feeling of being trapped, she swallowed the tremble in her voice.
‘You will care for the child, but you must have other tasks to do as well.’
‘Why? You dragged me here and now you tell me what I must do?’
He turned away from viewing the room to address her. ‘It’s a wonder you do not curb your tongue. Do you want to return to the streets?’
Where was her sense of self-preservation? Frayed with the worry over Gabriel, the kidnapping, the dark hallway...this room. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘What can you do?’
Nothing. She was good at nothing domestic because she had never had an opportunity before. She wasn’t good at tasks outside the home either. She either stole what she needed, or ran errands for those too busy.
‘I cannot cook.’
‘There is a man who comes and cooks for me when I am in residence. But my men loathe kitchen duties. I’m assuming you can chop vegetables.’
She shrugged.
‘Tomorrow we’ll have a better idea of what you can do.’
‘Why are you offering this?’
He looked at her for so long she was sure he saw all her imperfections and weaknesses. Darkness never looked for anything good.
‘Are we to pretend you don’t know your role? Are we to continue further discussions as if you have a choice?’
He sounded as every nobleman sounded when speaking to those beneath him. Except...there wasn’t the bite of conviction in his voice she had come to expect. It was as if he said the cruel words, but didn’t mean them. Which made no sense at all. He was wealthy and clearly of noble blood, of course he meant them to be cruel.
She didn’t need to understand this man to know what she needed to do. She’d cooperate, stay alive for her family’s sake and, when she could, she’d escape. Except, her room was a trap. ‘Do I need to be put here?’
Reynold should turn away. The thief and child were fed and provided for; they required nothing else. He only meant to show her room, then escape from her and what he had accidentally revealed on the landing.
He must have exposed his turmoil, his sudden need for her, though he had stood in the shadows. He must have... Otherwise, why did she walk towards him?
Her footsteps behind him slowed as they approached the last staircase. And dragged as they walked the passageway to her room. He thought once he swung open the door and she saw the bed, stool and shelves she would gasp at her good fortune. Instead, she acted reluctant and now, by her comment, offended at her accommodations.
‘There is nowhere else. The other occupiers are men and you are the only female. If Grace cries, you are far enough away not to disturb. It is better for you both here.’
Placing the basket by her bed, he abruptly swept past her again to the stairwell.
‘Sir.’
He stopped. Everything in him rebelled at her using the formal address. After seeing her bathing, it felt wrong that she called him as everyone else did. He wanted her to...no. Turning, he said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘It’s still morning. What am I to do?’
He shouldn’t care what she did. ‘Care for the child.’
‘She’s sleeping. Do I have free rein of the grounds?’
Her wandering around his house, him catching glimpses of her around every corner? He wouldn’t survive it. Not after all that he had seen in the bath. All that he imagined on the landing as she stared at him. He’d been one shuddering heartbeat away from taking her. ‘No.’
‘Where are you going?’
Escaping from the questions in her stunning eyes. Barring that, he hoped to do what he always did. Read, write messages, and make plans. This residence was only one of many hideaways he had built for himself. There were some houses he hid only coin and supplies, but had never visited. All so he was never caught by his family.
Relocating from one domicile or country to another was extensive, but necessary, and it occupied most of his life.
What he was doing today was nothing he wanted this thief to be privy to, yet he already knew his concentration for the day wasn’t optimal. Even if he holed himself up in the study, he’d think about the thief and the child. In that sense, it mattered little where she was.
‘Follow me.’
Without waiting to see whether she would, he ascended the stairs. A moment, maybe two, and he heard the quick patter of uneven steps as she grabbed the basket. He didn’t offer to carry the child this time. He had little control as it was when it came to his daughter.
Especially with her soft warbling breaths emitting from the basket. Grace was awake and the thief was whispering to her. He wanted to tear the basket away, to peer into the basket at his daughter. To see if Grace would smile as his brother Balthus had once done to him.
To protect her, he made no such move. If he failed to keep his distance, his family would tear her apart. He did the only thing he could, hurrying his steps through the courtyard, widening his strides on his own staircase, to put distance between himself and the thief who was supposed to be his servant. Yet, how was anyone to believe that when he invited her to his private quarters?
Chapter Nine
Safely ensconced in his study, Reynold stopped to listen for the thief who did not hurry her pace. Perhaps she couldn’t, perhaps she sensed he needed time.
There was no peace here. In his study, the sanctuary of books usually eased his reeling thoughts. But she had been here before and everything in him knew it.
The thief entered more quietly than she had previously. While he watched them awkwardly, she carried the basket over to the bench under the window. Setting it down, she withdrew Grace and walked towards the door.
‘Where are you going?’
‘She’s wet. I’ll need to change her in the next room. They left spare linens in the bathing chamber.’
Control, that is all he wished for, all he needed to stay alive. So how had his life irrevocably devolved to this?
After all, he couldn’t ask her to his private rooms and not expect she’d need items to support her care of Grace. And, in truth, he didn’t want her changing soiled linens near his books. But just the way she so expectantly went about her tasks was something he hadn’t experienced before. Nor was the ease and familiarity in which she did them.
People didn’t do tasks like these in front of him. Servants came and went, carrying trays and items he needed, but they were trained to be ignored and invisible. But this nurturing of a child wasn’t covert. The thief didn’t try to mask her demands or quiet her singing. She simply...sang in front of him. She merely walked around as if she’d lived here all her life.
Since she did these deeds with such ease, it was apparent they were ordinary motions for her. To him, they were...extraordinary. She, the thief who was now eyeing him with brows raised, waiting for permission he hadn’t yet granted, hadn’t a clue how her insignificant task weakened his personal defences.
‘Very well,’ he said.
Nodding, she whisked Grace out of the room. Reynold stood for a moment out of place in his own home and chided himself. It shouldn’t matter if the thief and child were here or elsewhere in the household. He had games to play and no time to waste.
Sitting at his desk, he picked up the latest correspondence from his south-east messenger. Many more letters were in front of him, stacked, rolled, tied, sealed. These tiny encrypted and costly messages would contain vital information on how he could act.
Matters in his game were proceeding rapidly now his brother, Guy, had been killed by the Welshman, Rhain of Gwalchdu.
Up until that point, there had been four of them. Four Warstone brothers: Ian being the eldest, then Guy, himself and the youngest, Balthus. Four perfectly bred sons. Issue of the married roy
als, Henry and Joan of Warstone.
To the public, they had everything they could want. Many would argue they had the best of both worlds. That it was a blessing kings and the church were more powerful than the Warstone family. After all, kings and the church had responsibilities, Parliaments to cater to, wars to start, citizens to acknowledge. They had greater power, but much greater burdens. As to more coin, it was rumoured the Warstone family had more money than King Edward, not that they would acknowledge it.
So his family enjoyed their wealth and power, and they kept their arguments and divisiveness only among each other. That was his parents’ sacred rule. The punishments were so severe for all the other petty faults—how to stand, how to eat, et cetera—that none of his siblings ever dared break it.
And because they never did, to everyone else they were unbreakable, feared. And it made for a hellish childhood. Since birth, Reynold knew only hatred and death. When Balthus was born, his mother trained him as she had her other sons.
Reynold despised the unkind words, the anger, the insidious whispers. He wanted to protect Balthus’s innocence. The only outcome of his outbursts was his mother turning on him. Forging a pack of her and his brothers against him. His punishments became almost unbearable. Worse, she took Balthus away and it was a full year before he saw his little brother again. Just barely a boy, and the innocence gone, his first words to him were vitriol. His mother’s hatred had been planted.
Unable to fight against such a force, Reynold learned if he was quiet, he was allowed food and a place to sleep again. When he hid in the shadows he was ignored and allowed to observe. This way, he learned much of his family dynamics of power.
Even when he hadn’t been hated he was never the favourite. That would be Ian, the first born, who would inherit everything and damn well knew it. Superior and cunning like a fox. Ian was no fool and, since he’d had two twisted people to learn from, he was a formidable foe.
As a child, he wasn’t cruel like Guy, who snapped the necks of cats and hung the carcases in the servants’ quarters as a prank. And he could never be as eager to please as Balthus. His youngest brother would be beloved because he was the last.
