Bodyguards Boxed Set

by Julianne MacLean

  Ciara longed to turn on her heel and stalk out. “Indeed, Your Highness. Everyone has been most kind.”

  “If there is aught you have need of, simply ask and it shall be provided.”

  How about a map showing where you have your brother imprisoned? She watched as he opened a cabinet built into one wall and took out a flask, pouring himself a drink.

  Mustering her courage, she eased into the subject she needed to discuss. “Actually, Your Highness, I was curious to know when I might be introduced to the rest of your family.”

  “My father the king is still indisposed. He has been ill for many years, and is almost bedridden now.”

  “I am sorry to hear of it,” she said with genuine feeling. It was well known that King Stefan, a good man much loved by his people, had been afflicted in his later years with a terrible malady that slowly robbed him of his reason, rendering him unfit to rule.

  Daemon waved a dismissive hand, lifting the goblet he held to admire its jeweled surface. “The royal physicians keep him comfortable. He no longer even recognizes me.”

  Ciara might have felt sorry for Daemon—except that his father’s condition did not seem to bother him at all.

  She suddenly wondered what could have happened to this prince to make him what he was. He had started life with every advantage, including a loving family—only to turn into a cruel tyrant who would kill heedlessly, tax his people to the point of starvation, and hire the most vicious mercenaries to make war on a former ally.

  But she kept those questions to herself, turning away, pretending interest in a nearby tapestry.

  “And what of Prince Mathias?” she asked lightly. “Everyone speaks so highly of your brother. Will he be returning to attend the wedding?”

  “My brother”—Daemon took a long swallow from his cup—“has long preferred solitude, prayer, and reflection to life at court. That is why he refused the throne in my favor when our father first became ill seven years ago.”

  “But surely he will return home for your wedding.” She glanced over her shoulder, secretly watching for his reaction.

  The smallest hint of a smile curved Daemon’s lips. “Nay, I do not think so.”

  Her heart beat faster as she tried to interpret that look. “But he is your only brother. Would you not send a—”

  “Mathias is an odd man with odd ways, Princess. I assure you he would have no interest in our wedding. None at all.” He changed the subject once again, setting his goblet aside. “I grow weary of this tiresome discussion. The only family I am interested in is the one I will create with you, my sweet bride.”

  She turned to face him, holding her ground as he moved closer.

  His gaze passed over her in that cold leer again, and his voice dropped to a low, lustful tone. “You look well able to bear me sons.”

  “I hope to have many children, Your Highness.” The words were true, the feeling behind them genuine.

  Daemon closed in until he backed her against the tapestry. He leaned over her, bracing one hand against the wall. “I am glad to hear of it, Princess. Because I intend to plant my seed deeply and often until it bears fruit. And you may not find the experience especially pleasant. More than one lady has complained of feeling split asunder when breached by my fearsome sword.”

  Ciara refused to tremble before him, revealed no hint of the sick feeling that twisted her stomach. He sounded as if he looked forward to hurting her.

  “I will do my duty,” she whispered, meaning every word.

  “Aye, you will.” His wolflike smile reappeared.

  Just as suddenly as he had boxed her in, he straightened and turned away. “I am so pleased we have become better acquainted, Princess. But at the moment, other matters require my attention.” He moved toward the door, pausing there to glance back over his shoulder. “You may remain here if you wish, but remember what I said about touching my things. You will find that I do not tolerate disobedience.”

  With that, he left her alone, shutting the door behind him.

  Ciara closed her eyes, took a deep, shuddering breath, and very nearly sank to the floor. Then she shook her head, refusing to succumb to her fear.

  Daemon would never have the chance to make good his sickening threats. She would never be his bride. The rebels’ plan would succeed.

  It had to.

  And she had to help. Straightening, pulling her royal robes more closely around her, she went to find Miriam, to report what little she had learned in her first day as a spy.

  * * *

  CIARA SAT UP in bed, groggy with sleep. The fire on the hearth had burned to embers. Blinking drowsily, she realized the hour must be well after midnight. She pushed her tangled hair out of her face, wondering what had awakened her.

  Then she heard it again. A soft knock echoed across her chamber.

  Rubbing her eyes, she got out of bed. It must be Miriam. After supper, she had gone to tell the others about Ciara’s meeting with Daemon, though the two of them had agreed that there was no need for the men to know everything Daemon had said to her. Nor did they need to know that he had sent his royal physician to examine her this afternoon and was now satisfied that she was, indeed, a maiden.

  Royce and the others already wanted Daemon’s blood. It would not help to make them so angry that they became reckless.

  Barefoot, wearing only a thin cotton kirtle, she was halfway to the door when she realized that the knocking sound was not coming from there at all... but from the window.

  Someone outside was tapping on her window.

  She froze, turned, looking at the barred shutters with her head tilted to one side, thinking she must be dreaming, yet certain she was fully awake. And quite sane.

  But her room was at the very top of the tower, more than two hundred feet above the ground. And there was no wall outside, not even a sill. Naught but a sheer, deadly drop to the courtyard below.

  Who—what—could be rapping on her window, other than some crazed bird?

  If it was a bird, it was quite a large and impatient creature, for the knock sounded again, more insistent this time.

  She rushed over and lifted the bar.

  Then jumped back with a gasp when a black-garbed figure kicked the shutters open and leaped into the room.

  The bar almost slipped from her numb fingers, but he dived and caught it before it could clatter to the floor.

  “Take care, my love,” a familiar deep voice whispered. “I would hate to survive such a climb only to be run through by Daemon’s guards.”

  Her heart performed a somersault. Royce turned back to the window, yanked hard on a pair of ropes that dangled outside, and quickly gathered both in, along with a heavy wooden device attached to them.

  She gaped at him, shaking her head in shock. He was garbed from head to toe in black, including his gloves, his boots, and the raven-colored tunic and leggings worn by Daemon’s guards—minus the bright red-and-gold silk surcoat. He had even blackened his face with soot.

  Her questions finally sputtered out in a stunned whisper. “Where... how... what in the name of all the saints are you doing here? How did you—”

  “Shhh.” He pushed the shutters closed, dropped the bar back in place. “It was no more difficult than a steep mountain slope,” he claimed, setting down his equipment. “And with a new moon, a cloudy night, and a bit of sooty help from a torch, I am all but invisible—”

  “Invisible? You could have been killed! What could have possessed you to take such a risk? Dangling out there from a rope when your arm cannot have healed yet from the fight in Gavena—”

  “I would have asked you to let down your hair,” he said, turning to regard her with a grin, his teeth a slash of white in his blackened face, “but it is not quite long enough anymore.”

  Ciara blinked at him. Not only was the reckless madman unrepentant, he was thoroughly pleased with himself! “I do not find this at all funny.” She placed her hands on her hips. “Daemon thinks you are dead, and if he catche
s you in the palace, you will be.”

  “Then we will have to make sure he does not catch me.” He leaned back against the wall and removed his metal-studded climbing boots. “I needed to test this new device I have been working on all day.” He nodded toward the ropes on the floor, which were attached to what looked like a pulley and a crossbow bolt. “It makes a difficult ascent faster, but as I told Thayne, I needed some practice.”

  “And did you tell Thayne where you intended to practice?”

  “Aye.” The white grin flashed again. “He relented after only an hour or so of arguing with me.” Straightening, he stripped off his gloves and tossed them aside. “Now, are you going to stand there chastising me all night, or are you going to come over here and give me a kiss?”

  The only thing Ciara gave him was a glower. She wanted to throttle the man! Wanted to shake him! Wanted to... to...

  He held out a hand in silent entreaty and she ran forward into his embrace, whispering his name, and settled for kissing him senseless.

  His arms caught her close, molding her body to his as their mouths met in a deep, hungry joining. She forgot her anger and fear, reveled in the feel of his strength and his tenderness enveloping her. Their lips and tongues caressed, stroked, plundered until she was trembling and dizzy. Her face became almost as sooty as his and she did not care.

  Finally he lifted his head, breathing hard, still holding her tight. He nuzzled her cheek, his voice thick with emotion. “God, how I missed you.”

  She pressed her face against his chest, listening to the thunder of his heartbeat beneath his black tunic. She had missed him as well, more than she dared tell him. “It has been only a day, but it felt like a lifetime.”

  He tilted her head up, tracing his fingers over her cheek. “I never did have a chance to thank you for the gift you gave me yesterday.”

  She smiled. “It was no more than you deserve, Baron Ferrano.”

  He was silent for a long moment.

  “I love you, Ciara.”

  He said it so solemnly, his eyes and his voice so dark and intense, that the words took her by surprise. “And l love you, Royce,” she whispered.

  She lifted her head, her mouth seeking his again.

  But he evaded her this time, releasing her gently and stepping away. “And now that you have made me a knight again,” he said lightly, “I will have to keep my mind on certain knightly virtues like... chastity.”

  Ciara could not recall that ever being a knightly virtue and would have told him so, if her head had not been spinning from his words and his kiss, if her attention were not fastened on the way he was looking at her.

  Or rather, the way he was looking at the thin cotton kirtle she wore.

  Her entire body still felt sensitive from the heat and friction of being held against him, and as he gazed at her, she felt the flood of restlessness that she now knew was called desire. She caught her lower lip between her teeth as the tips of her breasts rose to hard, tight pearls.

  He turned suddenly away, walking over to a table in one corner, where there was a basin and ewer and a neat stack of linens. He splashed his face with cold water. “In truth, Ciara, I came here for more than climbing practice. I came to tell you that your meeting with Daemon today yielded more helpful information than you thought.”

  “My meeting with...” The memory and the name cleared the fog of passion from her mind. “But all I found was a room full of riches and—”

  “The black cross you described to Miriam, the one he said was a ‘gift’ Mathias sent from Rome.” Scrubbing his face with a length of linen, he cleaned away the rest of the soot. “There is a mountain in the Ruadhans that spewed up molten earth centuries ago, and when the rock cooled, it hardened into a strange, glassy black stone such as you described.”

  Ciara gasped. “So that is what it was.”

  “Apparently Daemon had some of it made into that cross, which he keeps in a reliquary, mayhap to serve as some kind of talisman—”

  “Thinking that sparing his brother will spare him an eternity in Hell,” she whispered, seeing how it would make sense to Daemon’s twisted way of thinking. She shook her head in disbelief... but then felt a rush of hope. “So now we know where Mathias might be!”

  “Aye.” Royce set the sooty towel aside, then seemed to think better of it and carried it to the hearth, tossing it in and stoking the flames. “On a peak they call the Gunlaug.”

  The somber tone of his voice as he said the name made Ciara shiver with apprehension. “What does that mean?”

  “It is an ancient word from the language of the tribes that once lived in those mountains. It roughly means”—he hesitated—“ ‘the Maker of Widows.’ ”

  Ciara felt her blood run cold. “And that is the mountain you are going to climb?”

  “If I hope to rescue Mathias,” he said quietly, gazing down into the flames, “aye, that is the mountain I am going to climb.”

  She shook her head in denial. “When?”

  “We leave at dawn.”

  Terror gripped her, icy and overwhelming. She suddenly understood why he had taken the risk of coming here tonight: he had wanted to give her one last kiss, hold her one last time, tell her he loved her before he... “Royce—”

  “I am to meet the others at first light.” He turned to face her. “That is why Thayne finally relented and allowed me to see you. It seems he lost someone who mattered a great deal to him in the war... and he never had the chance to say farewell to her.”

  Her vision blurred with tears as he drew close. She could not lose him! Not again, not now. Sweet Mary, only hours ago, she had felt such hope. “But you cannot—”

  “Ciara, I have no choice.” He took her hand and led her to the basin in the corner, dampening a fresh cloth. Tilting her head up with his fingertips, he began to tenderly clean the dark smudges from her face.

  She stood gazing up at him in mute anguish as cool drops of water and hot tears ran down her cheeks, down her neck, dampening her kirtle. Why did he have to be so honorable and loyal and brave? The very qualities she loved about him were taking him from her.

  “The wedding is in nine days,” he whispered as he worked, “and until then you must pretend as if naught has happened. I have every intention of returning before you walk down the aisle, little one. We would not be going if we did not believe we had a chance to succeed. A good chance. Every one of us was born and raised in these mountains, and my new device over there”—he nodded toward the window—“worked even better than I had hoped. We will be back, with Prince Mathias—”

  “So that I may marry him instead of Daemon,” she finished dully.

  He paused, the wet cloth poised above her chin.

  Then he continued washing away the marks that his kiss had left on her. “Aye.” He turned away before she could interpret the clash of emotions in his eyes.

  “Will Mathias make a good king?” she asked quietly.

  “He is a gentle and kind man, but I think he is strong enough to rule.” He rinsed out the rag. “And his subjects love him greatly, as they did his father.”

  “And will he be good to both his own people and those of Châlons? Will he deal fairly with all?”

  “Aye.”

  “Then I will not marry him.”

  His head came around with a jerk and his eyes fastened on hers. “What?”

  “I wish to marry you,” she informed him softly.

  “Ciara...”

  “My duty is to assure that my people have a safe, peaceful future, and with Mathias on the throne, that is what they will have. You just said so yourself.”

  “But there is still the matter of the peace agreement between Châlons and Thuringia—which includes a betrothal.” He set the cloth aside and moved away from her, toward the hearth.

  “Aye, but everyone has said that Mathias prefers the life of a monk or a priest,” she pointed out, following him. “Is it not rather presumptuous of us to be arranging his marriage? You do not ev
en know if he would want me for his wife.”

  Royce spun to face her, about to utter some quick retort, but as he looked down at her, only a strangled groan escaped him.

  Ciara followed the direction of his gaze, realizing that the water he had used to clean away all evidence of his kiss had created a different, and far more sensual, display: the damp front of her kirtle clung to the curves of her breasts, the cloth almost transparent in the low firelight.

  “There is not a man alive who would not want you,” Royce grated out, his voice hot and thick, his broad shoulders rising and falling rapidly as he struggled for breath. “And regardless of whether Mathias wants you or not, I am not of royal blood, and that fact will never change. Your father would never allow you—”

  She stepped closer, lifted a finger to his lips. “But there is still Provence, or Granada, or an island somewhere. Some place that appears on no map, where no one will care who or what we are.” Her lips curved gently as she revealed the plan she had been holding in her heart all day. “And I am still perfectly willing to live as a shepherdess.”

  His eyes met hers, those potent depths gleaming.

  She let her fingers slide downward along his hard jaw, to his throat, to his chest, let her hand rest over his pounding heart. She could almost feel the battle being waged within him.

  Knew they were both very close to surrender.

  His hands came up to cup her cheeks, and he threaded his fingers through her hair. “What have I done?” he asked, his voice raw. “You used to be such a sane, sensible lady.”

  “You took me on a journey,” she whispered, “into my own heart.”

  He closed his eyes, murmured an oath, bent to press his forehead to hers.

  “On the day we met,” she whispered, “you told me that the world does not exist to satisfy my wishes. And you were right. But sometimes, Royce... sometimes I believe that wishes really can come true.” She slid her fingers into the thick silk of his hair. “I love you, and I want you. You and no other.”