by Nicole Locke
‘Read me another of these stories.’
A lightness hit his chest at her demand. He had...almost laughed. To cover his reaction, he reached for the next book in the stack.
* * *
The afternoon wore on as he picked more Greek tales. Food came and she fed and played with Grace on the floor. When it came time, she settled her in the basket to sleep, adjusted her own body on the bench again. Her head leaning against the back pillows, her arms half-tucked under her.
The last book, like all the rest, she did not want to hold. This time, he relented. Her eyes were slumberous, her breath evening out. The book he chose often put him to sleep. Within moments, her eyes closed and stayed that way.
Reynold quietly shut the book. He didn’t dare move. Not because it would disturb the two females sleeping peacefully in his sanctuary. But because he didn’t know if his legs could hold him.
What possessed him to bring her here, to teach her to read? Grace did need to learn, but there were tutors or he could teach his daughter.
These books were his family and he merely opened and shared them with a thief. Had she in that moment of bathing possessed more than his body? He risked asking her opinion. She told the truth without ever knowing how many times he asked himself: was he merely a product of his sire and dame or could he make himself something else?
It seemed she knew his very soul. Then, through it all, he almost laughed? It was too much, too soon. Just as it was when he first held Grace.
Grace. Knowing the thief slept, and it was only him, he bent down to the basket, extracted his daughter and settled her belly on his chest as he rested again on the bench. He revelled in her soft snorting breath, the little rustle movements as she found a comfortable position against him.
She smelled sweet. As if innocence had a bloom all its own. He noted the differences between his callused hands against the folds in her white skin. He turned his left hand to contrast the scar he endured to the perfection in her dimpled fist, and made his own vow: that no matter what he was, or who he had to be for her, a stranger or her father, she would never suffer as he had.
The thief had suffered. Just a few sentences to indicate what her life was like before him and he wanted to know more. Time. Maybe with his daughter, with this woman who drew him to her, time would be in his favour.
How much time did they have? The thief slept quietly now, but if he closed his eyes, if he left the room, the house, this very city, he would know she was here. Just her presence, the light fragrance of his sage soap not masking her scent. Something beckoning him. Then there was that something else almost tangible between them.
Similar to an instinct or a sense. A bond, internal and vital, which lured and intoxicated. A corporeal ability he didn’t know he possessed or was capable of until she arrived. It uniquely tied him to her, with a fierce presence he didn’t have the ability to fight.
It wasn’t something he could negotiate with, battle, draw his sword and gut. He could send no battalions of mercenaries or release one lethal arrow. At present, he could find no freeing himself from her, though he knew he must.
For now, she slept and, a few heartbeats later, so did he.
Chapter Fourteen
Days went by, and Grace kept Aliette to a schedule. She gained strength. Slept less. Took the spoon and anything else in her vicinity she could grab. She didn’t talk or make a sound, but if Aliette watched her closely enough there was communication.
The mercenaries kept their silence, though they gave up on stopping their own conversations and she gradually learned their names and personalities. Some of them fenced a large corner in the dining hall for Grace to play in since she had taken to crawling out of her basket.
Her captor had stopped in his tracks, stared at it, but continued to do whatever it was he was doing. Except in the afternoon, when the sun was just setting and he called her to read, he didn’t seem to keep to any such schedule as she and the men had fallen into.
Sometimes he’d be in his rooms all day, sometimes only a few moments before storming down the stairs and handing tiny leather pouches to another man, who would saddle a horse and not return.
She continued to search for ways to escape. When all else failed, she watched the main doors when they opened. She realised after a few days there were a core of mercenaries who always stayed and others who came and went. On the sixth day, there were two who pounded at the great door outside. Their horses were in a lather, their own clothes were stained, torn and, when they dismounted, they collapsed.
That day, Darkness hadn’t asked her to read and he’d stayed in his rooms far into the night. She knew he was awake when everyone else slept for she saw the lights burning upstairs.
Since she arrived she hadn’t been able to sleep. Not unless she counted that day when she fell asleep in the study as if she hadn’t a care in the world and was safe from any harm.
But the room had gone quiet, the fear of the day had wrecked whatever strength she had to avoid dangerous situations and her captor’s unexpected kindness with the book shattered her sense that life was only about survival.
When she had woken, she found him in the same spot, his expression contemplative as he watched her. Realising her captor watched her sleep wasn’t what brought heat to her cheeks, but the fact he didn’t look away...and neither could she. Not when he cradled Grace against him. Both of their hair so dark; their lashes unnaturally long. Grace looked so slight within his large hands, against his powerful body.
She had wanted to ask him a thousand questions—why deny Grace was his, why act as if he didn’t want her when he tenderly held her against him? His heated gaze turning challenging until, as if sensing the tension between them, the child woke and she bid him goodnight.
Another sleepless night, for Darkness kept her wary. She knew why she couldn’t sleep, she just couldn’t raise an argument why she should be moved. But it wasn’t only the dark keeping her awake, but her circumstances. Surrounded by men who should have terrified her, but didn’t. She watched the mercenaries train with their knives and bodies. With her and Grace, they were nothing but gentle consideration.
And her captor... Darkness was still all arrogance and ruthlessness. He most of all should have terrorised her, but over the course of the days she saw more of the man. The fact he whispered words to himself as he read Greek, but not the other languages.
The careful way he had watched her when she woke from sleep. How he held Grace and conversed with his men. His need to control, the respect he gave them. He was curt, rude, formidable and reluctantly kind. His kindness, which always seemed to disquiet and surprise him, tugged at something inside her.
She could no longer deny that the time with him was changing her perception of him. It was more than his kindness. No longer was she wary with him. In its place was something inexplicable. An awareness that felt...shared. It was there in ways she couldn’t explain. A feeling when he sat with her reading, in the way he enquired about Grace, in the lives within the stories. In caught glances that lingered.
Those should have alarmed her, but her heart—her heart, which she thought broken—recognised him. The longer they spent together the more she wanted to...speak of it. That maybe he felt the recognition, too. Which made no sense, given his obvious wealth and status, but still the feeling was there.
But more than that, it was remarkable because of who she was, what she had become when her parents abandoned her. With her new family, her heart no longer felt alone, but there was still something jagged inside her and she couldn’t trust.
Somehow, she felt she fit here, in this fortress, surrounded by mercenaries, on a sumptuous bench being read to from beautiful books. Fit because of Grace, who had brought them together and whom she cared for deeply.
She shouldn’t trust any of it, not while she was kept separated from her family. And not when her captor was thoughtful to her
one moment, cold to her the next.
No, despite her feelings, she couldn’t trust her surroundings, or Darkness, who had worn blood-spattered clothing. Whose blood? She feared the answer, the truth. Because the more time she spent with him, the more she doubted it could be Grace’s mother’s. There was loyalty and reluctant kindness here. Why would he murder Grace’s mother? And yet...how else had Grace ended up in his care? And where was her mother now? Why was she becoming more certain he played some role with her, with himself? No man denied being a father, then cradled the babe against him while she slept. No one shared stories with a servant.
So many questions.
The only certainty she had were her old fears. Her dark room downstairs frightened her despite the fire which now always burned in the passageway. Only the courtyard provided enough light in the dead of night, but that open space had nothing to block the icy winter wind.
The weather was changing for the worse and, while she was locked up, safe and warm, the house where Vernon, Helewise and Gabriel were staying was cold and draughty. The fires they did light were barely enough to heat their extremities; they could never risk more than that. She had intended to procure more blankets. The ones they had were past worn. She hoped they were alive, fed, warm. She hoped they were still there and she’d see them again.
* * *
Damned. That’s what he was. Reynold swept out of his bedroom and into the study, bounded out the door and down the staircase. The men on guard took note of his departure, but they did not follow him.
Wise decision.
The days were disappearing despite the few hours slept. Another night, and the house was quiet while everything inside him clamoured and roared. Such a din of thoughts he could not cease.
The thief was torturing him with the secrets and mysteries of her. Since that first night there had been changes. Noticeable ones, but nothing overt, nothing he couldn’t...and didn’t...control.
Except one. When they were alone in the study. When he could smell her soft scent and almost feel her fingers as she turned a page. The way the stories lit her eyes. The soft parting of her lips, her soft gasps of delight or dismay, tightened his body to unimaginable degrees. Still she would not give her opinions on the stories, still he wanted them.
Mysteries. Secrets. He’d see her watch the doors, a longing on her face as if everything she wanted was on the other side. Why?
And more questions when every room she entered she saw mercenaries light additional torches and candles. As if she was afraid of the dark. How could someone who lived on the streets be afraid of the dark? Such vulnerability should have been wrenched from her long ago.
That fact that it wasn’t... Everything in him yearned to be near her at the same time he needed to stay away. He found himself turning right instead of left in his home because he knew where she’d be and he wanted to hear her soft babbling to Grace. The next moment he found himself turning again to avoid the play of candle flames against her features.
Worst of all, he found himself wanting to talk. To share. Not those bits he couldn’t—the game, or his family—but other aspects of his life. When he read a book or the places he went. Share his life as if it was a story just to see her eyes brighten. He held himself back, but the weakness was there simmering ever closer to the surface.
He rushed across the empty snow-covered courtyard to the dining hall and burst through the door. The room was surprisingly empty as well. Though he had the house specially built for defence, a few men were required to keep watch. The men by his doors were awake, there should be others walking about as well.
The fire was dim in the dining hall so he threw a few more logs on it. The passageway’s fireplace near the thief’s bedroom was well-lit lately. The quarters he put them in were the most secure as well. Only one entrance and a long hallway with many men in between. It was a safe haven for the thief and his daughter, but more than that it was a means to escape.
What no one knew was the exit under the bed. A spot in his home to escape should his family find him. It was the safest place for them to be. However, the room put them too far away. He couldn’t hear them, smell his child’s scent as he held her, or admire the curls of freshly washed black hair.
He wanted them both for different reasons, but he wanted the same result. He wanted them near him.
All the worst for the messages. The Englishman had gone rogue, separating from his usual troop and kidnapping a Colquhoun child. Part of the game? A threat to seize the dagger? He had no way of knowing, though he’d been trying.
There was also the recent activity at his parents’ home. For every man he sent out they had been sending twenty more. Foolish if they wanted to stay anonymous to their deeds like him, but fortuitous because it was all the easier to track them.
But was the activity his parents’ or his brothers’? They all kept their base in his childhood home further south. He last knew Ian’s whereabouts weeks ago, which was unreliable information. He could be anywhere. It’d been months since he knew of Balthus’s location and that was unacceptable.
‘I thought if you were to brood outside your rooms, you’d need some wine to do so.’
Reynold didn’t turn from his task of stoking the fire. He knew that voice.
He’d taken Louve in his employ on a whim from an enemy. No, from a forced ally. Reynold thought he’d fall in line with the other mercenaries, be paid and keep his mouth shut. But there was a certain insouciance about him, as if life was humorous, and Louve never could stay silent. To make it worse, it was as if he sought out Reynold’s company and, over the past year, Reynold had caved and allowed certain liberties of his time. Unfortunately, it gave the mercenary ideas that he could freely talk to him. Like now.
Straightening, he turned to see Louve carrying two flagons and two goblets. ‘What are you doing here? You’re not on duty.’
Louve set down the wine to pour it. ‘You’re not the only one she keeps up at night.’
Was the thief haunting all his men as well as him? Were they, too, flapping their waxed wings and trailing closer and closer to her? He didn’t know what occurred while he plotted and planned. Hours, days he had been toiling and all the while these men, these hired swords, had been circling—
‘Careful, you’re showing your human side.’ Louve dragged a chair to the fire.
Reynold scowled, which made most men cower. Louve merely raised his brow. ‘Leave me be.’
‘I’m thirsty—sir. Did you insist on her calling you that as well? Since you’re keeping her like you are me, it isn’t reasonable.’
‘I’m not keeping her. I’m—’
Louve smirked. ‘Didn’t think that one through? There’s a child involved, of course you’re keeping her. She’ll want to know your name eventually...as will your daughter.’
‘Not my daughter and don’t talk about her,’ Reynold said. He needed a mindless distraction this evening—instead he got Louve. A distraction, but also an irritation. The wine, however, was welcome and the fire was warming. Reynold dragged the other chair and sat down.
Louve stretched his feet to the fire. ‘The woman doesn’t sleep in the room downstairs.’
If the thief didn’t sleep in the room, where was she now and why had no one notified him before? Reynold lifted the goblet to his lips and took a slow drink to hide his reaction.
Louve huffed in amused irritation. ‘When she does sleep, it’s in the hallway outside the door. She makes sounds in her sleep. The men and I have taken turns to check on her.’
Reynold swallowed, held himself steady. ‘And the child?’
‘Inside the room. Sleeps peaceful enough.’
But the thief wasn’t at peace. Were these sounds she made ones of distress or something else? Did she sleep that way to protect Grace, or because she didn’t like the room?
‘Are you attempting to understand why she does
it?’ Louve chuckled. ‘The men and I have a good guess.’
Reynold refused to bite. But he remembered the thief’s slowing steps towards the room, her eagerness to go somewhere else. His inviting her to his sanctuary. Was she still afraid of darkness?
‘Still not used to conversation, are you?’
Reynold didn’t converse with anyone, especially hired help who came and went. In fact, he constantly hired new mercenaries to keep his anonymity. Instead of loyalty, he paid them well and they were useful for one purpose. ‘I dislike time wasted.’
Louve shot him a glance. ‘I’ve been with you too long to cower before your façade of the great nobleman talking to mere servants. I know what we do with the extra food around here. I know you give away great treasures to the poorest of monks.’
His mother had beaten into him the many ways to present himself at court and how to behave before those lesser than him. When needed, he found himself using such façades to protect his most private of thoughts. Presenting enough disdain and contempt kept most people away from him. Most...except Louve.
‘Are you pretending to our new guests you have no soft underbelly?’ Louve continued. ‘Are you presenting her with your family’s disdain for the poor and the weak? Since she’s staying, she’ll see your underhanded compassion just as I have.’
Reynold felt like growling. ‘Tomorrow, you and I will train.’
Louve stretched his neck. ‘Then I’ll enjoy tonight all the more, since tomorrow night I doubt I’ll be able to move. What do we try first? Wrestling or just swords and daggers?’
Humour again. Reynold took another sip. He’d kept Louve too long, they’d become too familiar with each other. He feared Louve knew all his secrets, but kept his silence on them all the same. If that was the case, where did his loyalties lie?
‘Silence again?’ Louve said. ‘I would think you’d have become accustomed to talking. There’s a woman and a child in your home now. That’s inviting a mountain of conversation, Reynold.’
