Oath

by K. J. Jackson

  “Yes. So your dreams are that much better, and that much more tragic.” Venom dripped from her voice. “You know exactly what you are missing. What you will never have again. A harlot’s lips.”

  Shit. Had he truly called her a harlot? Arse. Words had been flying from his mouth at Fletch without thought, and he deserved every whit of the bitterness currently oozing from her.

  His head tilted, almost apologetic, as words pushed through gritted teeth. “I should not have spoken so…freely…in front of you, Lady Canton.”

  “I have never been afraid of the truth, Tieran. You know that.” The bitterness eased ever so slightly from her voice. “And I much prefer honesty to my face, than to deal with the duplicity of a hypocritical man.”

  Tieran sighed. He had mangled the apology, not that he was sure he was trying to apologize. He rubbed his eyes with the butts of his palms. “What are you even doing here, Lady Canton? Are you still determined to stalk Lord Shepton?”

  Her arms crossed over her belly again. “Why do you insist I am stalking him?”

  “Tell me you are not.”

  Her head cocked, her lips pulling to the side for a long moment. When she opened her mouth, her voice had gone neutral, as though she had not a care in the world. “Since you have respected me enough to tell me the truth of what you honestly now think of me, I can only return the spirit of honesty. Quite simply, Tieran, there is a list.”

  “A list?”

  “Yes, a list. And Lord Shepton is on it.”

  “What sort of list are you speaking of?”

  She looked down, smoothing her dark skirts before looking up at him, her face a mask of indifference. “That part is none of your business, Tieran. Do not ask me about it.”

  He took a step closer to her, meant to intimidate, but it only brought him close enough to catch a whiff of her scent.

  Peaches.

  She still smelled of peaches. Damn the smell. He hadn’t been able to eat the blasted fruit for years after he’d found out she had married Lord Canton.

  He turned his head to drag a breath of air that didn’t smell of her. “If you mean to attempt to ruin the man because of some mysterious list, Lady Canton, then you need to rethink your actions.”

  Her eyes searched his face. “Why do you defend the man? He is a dear friend?”

  “No.”

  Her slippers silent on the stone floor, she shuffled a step closer and lifted her hand, her fingers running along the lapel of his dark jacket, smoothing it to his chest. The movement natural, almost unconscious—the exact path her hand had taken a thousand times over in those first years they knew each other.

  Her chin lifted, tilting her head back so she could meet his eyes. “Let me ask you a question, Tieran.”

  He cocked his right eyebrow in reply.

  “Lord Lockston—I have chatted with him several times over the past days here at Wellfork Castle. Yet he did not know who I am. I hinted of our past those many years ago, even mentioned your name, just to learn—” She cut herself off.

  “To learn what, Lady Canton?”

  Her look dropped, the confidence she had approached him with wavering. “To learn if he knew of me.”

  Her gaze lifted to him, a glimmer of vulnerability shining in her eyes. “Lord Lockston is—was—a dear friend of yours. That is how you spoke of him years ago. Clearly, the scene with him today tells me you still regard him as a true friend. Yet, years ago, when I was your betrothed, you never told him of me.”

  Tieran inhaled, his chest rising and pushing into her fingers still lingering on his jacket. “No.”

  She nodded once, her brown eyes lowering, thoughtful, as her hand dropped to her side. A long breath passed.

  Her look snapped up, shrewd, pinning him. “Since we are fonts of honesty this day, tell me, Tieran, did you ever intend to marry me?”

  “What?”

  “I have come to realize a truth as of late, and I will be honest, it has been jarring to my person.” Fingers tapping along the edge of her skirts, she spun, stepping to the side of him, distancing herself before she continued.

  “All of this time I had been harboring…hopes…hopes I had no right to entertain, Tieran.”

  Removed from him, she stared at the scene of cherubs twisted in grape vines on the tapestry warming the stone wall of the hallway. “But you never truly wanted more than a trollop in Cheshire to entertain you. I was nothing more than that, nothing to tell your friends about. Nothing to tell your family about. A fun diversion. You were never going to marry me. Never going to return from the war for me.”

  The injustice of her words hit him, sending an instant swell of defense he wanted to spew into his chest.

  There had been nothing but her—her and her alone—that had carried him through the war years. The thought of her waiting for him, it was all that had mattered. Her face, her laughter—that had been all he could imagine when he closed his eyes, time and again during the war when blood was being splattered before him.

  Her brown eyes—the gold strands twisting in the irises. Her uncontrolled smile that turned crooked at the corners, yet only when she smiled at him. Her thick black hair that he adored twisting around his finger.

  Had he known she was about to marry Lord Canton six years ago, he would have killed a thousand men to make it back to her. He would have moved the very earth he stood on.

  But he had been too late.

  He swallowed hard.

  No. The past was not something he wanted to revisit with Liv.

  Not now. Not ever.

  He looked at her, staring at the distinct lines of her profile. Elegant. The years had done nothing but refine her beauty, bringing it to an intelligent, shining peak.

  Beauty that she now used for malicious purposes.

  His jaw twitched. “So that was why you kissed Lord Lockston? He is my friend and you wanted to make me jealous?”

  “The kiss?” Her gaze left the tapestry to land on him as both of her eyebrows arched, sending long wrinkles across her forehead. “You thought that was for your benefit?”

  “Was it not?”

  Her eyebrows lowered and she shook her head, an odd smile lifting one side of her face. “Do not flatter yourself, Tieran. I don’t know when such conceit took over your life, but it is not becoming of you. Assumptions such as the one you just made do nothing but cause embarrassment.”

  “I am not embarrassed.”

  Her head tilted to the side, her eyes deftly regarding him. “Then I am embarrassed for you.”

  “So that kiss had nothing to do with me?”

  “No.”

  “Then why do it?”

  She sighed, picking up the side of her black skirts and starting to move past him. She paused for the smallest step, leaning toward him, her voice low. “Quite simply, Tieran, Lord Lockston is on the list as well.”

  She stepped beyond him and went under the arched doorway, her face serene as she entered the dining hall before he could stop her.

  List? What the hell was this bloody list about?

  And why was one of his best friends on it?

  Tieran’s eyes narrowed, watching her black skirts sway with far too much pomposity.

  Loyalty, even for an arse like Lockston, reared in his chest.

  As much as he wanted to refuse it—deny the need for it—Tieran had to come to terms with what he was about to do. Loyalty demanded it.

  It was time to reinsert himself into Liv’s affairs.

  { Chapter 6 }

  Thwap.

  A bird thumped into the glass by her head, and Liv sat upright in the window seat, peering out at the snow on the ground.

  Her forehead flat against the pane of glass, she spotted the bird, a small, plump sparrow that had landed, stunned, in a deep bank of snow just below the window.

  The snow had come down heavy—three days of it—and it had kept her inside, along with the mishmash of characters visiting Mortell Abbey in Yorkshire. Aside from the time in her a
ssigned chambers—and she could only hide in there so long—there had not been the slightest break to escape the lot of them—not even for five minutes.

  She needed to get outside. Ride a horse. Walk along the river. Something—anything.

  Liv was accustomed to social engagements that ended in a timely fashion—that allowed her to escape at will to the quiet of her house where she could hear her own thoughts in her head. But it had now been a week at Mortell Abbey, and half of that time she had been captive in this drawing room, subject to the strained polite chatter of the dispirited wives, along with the occasional veiled insinuation as to why Liv was even in attendance at the winter house party.

  If only they knew she was here for Lord Shepton.

  Tapping her forefinger against the pencil in her hand, she glanced down at the sketch paper she had propped against a leather-bound book. Disgust instantly flooded her.

  The chest of a giant man, bedecked in the finest of jackets, stared up at her from the paper. She had mindlessly sketched the torso of a man from the waist up. The drawing ended at the neck where she had run out of paper. Thank goodness.

  Without the likeness of a face to prove otherwise, she could pretend she was just exacting her proficiency at getting the lines of a torso correct. Yet she knew full well who the chest belonged to. Tieran.

  This was the twelfth sketch she had done of him in some form or another—his chest, a hand, the back of his neck, his boots—since she had seen him at Wellfork Castle two weeks ago.

  Removing herself to Yorkshire was supposed to be a cure for her wayward thoughts. But her subconscious mind had turned cruel on her, and she was having a blasted time trying to control it. A harlot. She had to remember Tieran’s opinion of her—straight from his lips.

  Tucking the drawing into the front flap of the book, she slammed the tome onto the window seat. She had thought to sit here and plan, write down every bit of information she had on Lord Shepton, and concoct the best scheme for completing her ruin of him. That was why she was here, of course. To finally trap Lord Shepton. There was no other reason to jail herself for weeks in Yorkshire with a horde of pretentious men and simpering women.

  Deliver ruin—she needed to concentrate on that.

  Instead, she was fiddling with sketches.

  She pressed her forehead on the glass again, watching for movement in the tunnel of snow the bird had created on its way down. She saw feathers, but no twitches. No chirps. Not that the bird would have an easy time getting out of the pit it had created.

  She looked up at the sky. The snow had ceased, but long grey clouds still blanketed the land. The bird needed help, and she needed not to be inside another moment.

  After layering on her heaviest wool cloak and pulling up her tallest boots, Liv had just rounded an outside corner of the abbey when she realized the snow was deeper than her boots, and her wool stockings were already soaked around the knees. She also realized why they had been stuck inside the abbey during the storm—moving through snow that deep was exhausting, every step a tiring effort.

  It took her another ten minutes of trudging through the drifts, moving along the far north wing of the abbey, before she found the spot in the snow where the bird had landed.

  The sparrow was still there, now buried in a tomb of snow. It was moving, fluttering, trying to escape, but only succeeding at knocking more snow on top of itself.

  Liv plunged both hands down, elbows deep into the snow. Digging beneath the bird, she lifted it gently from its pit, attempting not to scare it.

  The bird stilled. Liv lifted it higher to eye level. Its head swiveled, little black eyes peering at her through the snow covering its head and beak.

  It shook, snow splattering in all directions, landing across the bridge of her nose.

  She lifted her hands higher, giving it a little jostle. “Go.”

  Tweet. The bird chirped but made no motion to flap its wings.

  She lifted it a touch higher. “Go. Fly away.”

  The bird sat, head pivoting, looking around.

  “Go on.” Liv tossed it slightly into the air, expecting that to spur it into motion and fly away.

  It didn’t.

  It fell through the air. A puff of white flew up as it hit the snow, descending into a deep new hole in front of Liv’s boots.

  “Buggers, little birdy.”

  She bent, fishing it out of the snowbank again.

  Its little black eyes still alert, watching her, it didn’t look hurt from the fall, but a mixture of guilt and compassion settled hard on Liv’s shoulders. Looking down at the bird cradled in her gloves, she realized the bird wasn’t robust at all. Sopping wet, bedraggled, the poor creature was scrawny—the wild tufts of exaggerated feathers earlier had only made it appear much stronger than it truly was.

  Liv glanced up at the window into the drawing room. The ladies sat with their needlepoint and their cards, not noticing Liv just outside the room. Her mouth tugged to the side as she contemplated the appropriateness of bringing the bird inside to her room.

  If the ladies hadn’t even noticed her leaving the drawing room, then they surely wouldn’t notice her sneaking along the rear hallways up to her room.

  Lifting the edge of her cloak, Liv cradled the bird into a secure spot, wrapping the wool around it to both hide and calm it, and held it to her belly. She lifted her right leg, awkwardly turning around, and followed her deep footprints in the snow back alongside the abbey.

  Slipping in through the door at the end of the north wing, Liv had just made it to the second level, moving along an empty hallway to the stairs leading to her room on the third floor, when a shadow appeared in front of her.

  She jumped with a yelp, almost dropping the swaddle of cloak.

  “What are you doing, Liv?”

  Tieran.

  The scare sending her heart out of control, her look snapped up to him, irate. He dared to appear without warning, out of the shadows, days away from London—and then decided now was the appropriate time to drop “Lady Canton” and address her as “Liv”? The gall of the man.

  Her mouth opened to tell him that exact thing when the bird squirmed under her cloak, its beak poking into her belly. She needed to change course.

  “I am attempting to make way to my chambers, my lord.” Tamping down on her ire, she barreled forward, attempting to step around him. He stepped to his right, blocking her path. Damn him. He knew he could swallow the width of the whole corridor with his size.

  She glared up at him. “What are you doing here?”

  “I only just arrived, and I have business with Lord Shepton to attend to.” His blue eyes settled on her. “I saw you outside, tromping through the snow. What were you doing? Spying?”

  Instant indignation sent her cheeks flaming. “Spying? You think I was spying on someone? Outside, in knee-deep snow—that would be the best way to spy upon someone?” Her head shook. “You are mad. And your opinion of me has obviously reached an even lower low.”

  She lifted her free left hand, pushing the outside of his arm. A weak attempt to get him to move, since she knew she couldn’t physically force him to do so. “Let me pass, Lord Reggard.”

  “No.”

  “No?” She reeled a step backward at the refusal, her right hand tightening around the bird pouched in her cloak. “Your overbearance has reached an infuriating point, my lord. I will move past you.”

  His left eyebrow cocked, his arms crossing over his chest. “No. I want to know what you are about, Liv. What you were doing outside. Why it’s now so important to get to your room. Are you hiding something?”

  Blast it. The arse was not going to let her by. “I am none of your concern, Lord Reggard. None. You will excuse me.” She spun, intending to go back down the stairs and make her way to her rooms by way of the main staircase. She would just have to pray no one else intercepted her.

  “Stop, Liv.”

  She made it three steps along the corridor before her right elbow was snatched, j
erking her to a stop and ripping her hand from the swaddle around the bird.

  Her cloak fell. The sparrow squawked, flittering up to the ceiling to clutch the molding along the uppermost corner of the hallway.

  Bugger. Now the bird decided it could fly?

  Liv shook her arm free from Tieran and ran the few steps to stand under it, her arm stretched upward, trying to reach it, entice it down.

  “A bird?”

  Her chin whipped over her shoulder as she shot Tieran a withering look. “Yes, a bird. You did this, now help me get it down from there before I am discovered.”

  “Why not leave it—where could it go?”

  “Downstairs, into a room, anywhere.”

  “So what if it does?”

  Her forehead scrunched at him. Was he truly that obtuse? “It is bad for the bird, Tieran. How do you think it will be disposed of? Now help me get it before it flies off.”

  “You want me to catch your bird?”

  “Yes. This borders on insulting—no, it is rude—to bring a scraggly bird into someone’s home. And I would rather not be requested to leave the abbey at the moment. Especially when travel is nearly impossible.”

  She looked back up to the bird, attempting to whistle. It was a weak tweet, at best. She never could whistle.

  “Give me your cloak, Liv.”

  She exhaled a grumble but stepped to the side and removed her black cloak, handing it to him.

  Tieran slid both hands under the dark fabric, creating a bowl with his hands. He whistled, a low, pure tone, as he slowly lifted his hands far above his head.

  The sparrow’s head cocked back and forth, trying to figure the sound out. It didn’t even notice the black cloth creeping up at it until Tieran had stretched high, covering the bird with the cloak from below.

  “Careful.” Liv touched his shoulder.

  “I am capturing a bird for you, Liv. I am attempting to be as cautious as I can.”

  He clasped his hands together along the ceiling, making a pouch for the bird with the cloak. He brought the cloak and the bird down slowly, his heels clicking to the wooden floors as he came down from his toes. “Now what?”

  “Up to my room.” Liv hurried in front of Tieran, racing up the stairs to make sure the hallway was free of people before she rushed to her chambers. She ushered Tieran in quickly, closing the door behind him.