Marriage Deal With the Outlaw & the Warrior's Damsel in Distress & the Knight's Scarred Maiden : Harlequin Historical August 2017 (9781488021640)

by St. Harper George; Fuller, Meriel; Locke, Nicole

  Bruin caught her flailing arms, pushed them gently back against her sides. ‘Eva, calm down. I’m telling you the truth. Steffen was ill, injured with a head wound. I saw him myself, lying in this bed.’

  ‘Aye, it’s the truth, mistress,’ the manservant chipped in, keen to help, to dispel any element of doubt. ‘Lord Steffen was wounded at the Battle of Burton Bridge, but his injury was not as bad as everyone first thought.’

  Bile rose in her throat, thick and coruscating. ‘Then he tricked you,’ Eva spluttered out, her gaze holding tight to Bruin’s eyes, steel blades of light. ‘He made out his injury was worse than it actually was. He wanted you to pity him, so you would do his bidding. So you would fetch me.’ Eva shook her head, a listless, defeated movement. Every joint, every muscle in her body ached, stretched thin with tension, as if someone had taken a hammer and mashed her into a useless pulp. ‘I’m done for,’ she murmured.

  ‘Don’t you think I would have seen through such an act?’ Bruin asked, hating the defeated hunch of her small frame, the hunted desperation lurking in her turquoise eyes. But even as he spoke the words, doubt flooded through him. It was entirely possible that Steffen might have done such a thing and he had been too caught up in his own selfish grief to notice.

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘He’s clever, Bruin. Unpredictable. You told me so yourself.’ Beneath his forearm, her spine was stiff, a tense rope of vertebrae, fragile yet strong.

  Bruin sighed. ‘Let’s go and see him, Eva, let’s sort this out.’

  ‘If Lord Steffen is better, then he won’t need to beg me for forgiveness,’ she said hastily. ‘I can leave.’ Her toes curled down in her boots, a gesture of resistance.

  ‘Do you want to run scared for the rest of your life? I think you need to see him.’ His arm tightened around her waist, an indication that they should move from the doorway, but Eva placed her hand against his chest, stalling him.

  ‘Bruin, there’s something I haven’t told you.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘I still have something that Lord Steffen wants. And it’s not my forgiveness.’

  Bruin’s eyes drifted over to the manservant waiting respectfully in the corridor. ‘Eva, if this is another of your stalling tactics, then—’

  ‘It’s not, I promise you. Your brother held me prisoner in order to claim all my land and wealth. But there was one item of value I thought Steffen knew nothing about. So that even after I had signed over everything he wanted, I would still have enough to live on.’

  ‘What was it?’ The foreign lilt was prominent in the hushed, urgent tones of Bruin’s voice.

  A noise at the far end of the corridor made them both turn in unison. The servant’s head whipped around, an obsequious look passing over his face as he bowed low. A tall, broad-shouldered man was walking down the corridor, bronze-coloured hair, cheeks flushed ruddy with cold, pulling off his leather gloves as he approached. A man who looked exactly like Bruin.

  Lord Steffen.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘Ah, you have returned, I see!’ Striding forward, Steffen thumped Bruin’s shoulder, glancing down at Eva. She shrank back against Bruin’s broad frame. ‘You did well, Brother, in bringing this little lady back to me.’ His eyes swept over Eva’s petrified features, a triumphant smile flickering across his mouth. ‘Where did he find you?’

  Eva was silent, eyelashes fluttering down to avoid her tormentor’s piercing gaze, Bruin’s arm supporting her. Hot and cold shivers tracked up and down her spine. Lord Steffen’s manner was jovial and benign, completely contrary to the man who had imprisoned her. This was not the true Lord Steffen; he was playing a role for Bruin’s sake. Bile rose in her throat; she swallowed hastily. The urge to turn and plead with Bruin, to beg him not to be fooled by his brother’s behaviour, rose within her, but a paralysing terror restricted her; it was all she could do to remain upright.

  To her dismay, Bruin clapped one hand on Steffen’s shoulder. His forearm brushed her veil lightly. ‘Good to see you up and about, Brother; I thought you were truly done for the last time we met.’ Eva’s stomach coiled inwards on a tide of fear; was she about to lose Bruin to his brother’s charm? Or had she ever had him at all?

  ‘So did I, so did I.’ Steffen nodded. ‘So…’ he clapped his hands together, his gaze switching from Bruin to Eva, then back again ‘…will you join me in the hall for something to eat? I am eager to talk to you, my lady, and that’s best done over a glass of mead and some food, rather than standing in a doorway.’

  ‘We’ll be there in a few moments,’ Bruin said. ‘I also need to discuss something with Eva.’

  Irritation creased Steffen’s brow, quickly clearing. ‘As you wish,’ he replied. ‘Please, use my chamber.’ He flicked his wrist powerfully at the empty made-up bed. ‘Make yourselves comfortable. But don’t tarry too long; I want to go outside again before the light fades.’ He smiled, fixing Eva with a blank stare, then marched off down the corridor, his manservant in scurried pursuit.

  Bruin pulled Eva into the chamber, shutting the door. His arm fell away as he turned to her, searching the pale, anxious lines of her face, the rapid pulse in her neck, partially obscured by the sweep of her veil. ‘What was it, Eva? What were you about to tell me about, before Steffen came up the stairs?’

  Her eyes were huge, shimmering pools of turquoise light, shot through with darts of gold. A sense of betrayal swept through her, a tide of desertion. In the spot where his arm had lain her back was cold, bereft of his touch. ‘You greet that man, that monster, like a long-lost friend. You keep saying that you’re on my side…’ Her voice trailed away miserably.

  Bruin folded his arms across his chest, wrinkling the embroidered crest. ‘I am on your side, Eva. I don’t trust him any more than you do. But I think we should give him a chance to make amends.’

  She laced her fingers, pale skin stretched taut across her knuckles. Her neck muscles ached from exhaustion. ‘How do I know that you are not in league with your brother, that you are not lying?’

  He thought of the number of times his brother had cut his girth straps and hidden his armour when they were younger; how once Bruin had become stronger and better than him in the field, how much Steffen had resented it and wanted Bruin to fail, to make a fool of himself in battle or at a tournament. ‘You don’t. You have never been in a position to choose. It would have either been me or someone else who would have dragged you, one way or the other, back to Steffen.’ His eyes gleamed over her, iridescent chips of pewter.

  Her eyes snared his; held. Then I’m glad it was you, she thought.

  ‘Besides, I have nothing to gain from upholding this promise to my brother. I thought he was dying and I wanted to fulfil his last wish. But now I know what he did, I will protect you from him. I’m on your side, Eva, but we need to sort this out, otherwise he might plague you for ever.’

  She pushed her hand against her forehead, closing her eyes momentarily. ‘I know. I know,’ she whispered. Her fingers shook. ‘But seeing him again—my God—’

  ‘He can’t touch you with me here.’

  She wavered, a willow bending in the wind. Filling her lungs with air, she fought to retrieve some sense of balance, to find her inner strength. ‘What your brother wants,’ she iterated the words slowly, carefully, ‘is a ruby.’

  Bruin tilted his head to one side, listening patiently. Waiting for her to explain.

  ‘It’s a gemstone that has been in my mother’s family for generations’ She lifted her eyes towards Bruin. ‘The only thing I have left to call my own.’

  His fingers tangled with hers, squeezed tight. ‘Then we will have to make sure that he doesn’t get it,’ he said, a slow determination colouring his voice.

  * * *

  Soup slopped over the edges of Eva’s pewter bowl. Across the sur
face, a skim of fat globules congealed slowly. Steffen had not been jesting when he said their food would be cold. And not only cold, but stale as well. The bread rolls, piled on a chipped pottery plate, held flecks of blue mould; the meat, although cooked, smelled rancid. But Eva didn’t care about the food, for, although Steffen sat beside her, Bruin’s final words in the chamber had given her renewed strength and hope. He was on her side.

  ‘I do apologise for the food,’ Steffen announced. ‘Hugh Fitsosbern took all his servants into battle, including the cook. To our detriment, unfortunately. Cooking has never been Simon’s strong point.’ Simon was no doubt the manservant whom they had first met and now moved between them, pouring mead from a large jug into their goblets. They were the only people in the great hall; the fire was unlit, the air chill and damp against her skin. A bland light hunkered down outside the vast arched windows; outside it must still be snowing.

  Steffen’s eyes swept over Eva. ‘Forgive my manners, my lady. Would you like me to take your cloak?’

  ‘I think I’ll wear it for a little longer,’ she replied tersely.

  His eyes roamed over her, a darker grey than Bruin’s, almost black, coals in the raw whiteness of his skin. Compared to his twin, Bruin’s face was tanned, chiselled angles of muscle beneath taut skin, whereas Steffen’s face showed signs of ageing, the hint of a fleshy roll beneath his chin. Her fear of him began to drop away, ebbing back like a slow tide.

  Steffen sniffed, biting enthusiastically into a piece of bread, then chewing with obvious displeasure. ‘Aye, you’re making the right decision; it’s freezing in here.’ Crumbs of bread spilled from his mouth as he spoke, scattering across his tunic. He cleared his throat. ‘Do you know why I asked Bruin to fetch you?’

  Eva nodded, her gaze fixed on the grimy tablecloth. An old wine stain had formed a rusty-coloured blotch to one side of her plate. Despite her uneasiness, this encounter with Steffen had not been as bad as she had predicted. She drew strength, courage, from Bruin’s quiet, calm presence. And although it was because of him that she sat here now, facing up to her enemy, she knew that Bruin had been right: she needed to stand up to her fear of this man and face her demons.

  Steffen glanced at Bruin, making sure that he had his attention, before turning back to Eva. ‘I was so ill, I thought I was going to die,’ he explained, a simpering expression crossing his face. ‘And all that time the only thing I could think of was what I had done to you. The awful way in which I treated you. I had to ask Bruin to find you, so that I could ask for your forgiveness.’

  Eva tilted her chin up, facing Steffen squarely. Her arm lay across the tablecloth, fingers playing idly with the stem of her goblet. The tiny pearl buttons on her sleeve glowed in the flickering candlelight. ‘And how are you going to do that?’ Her tone was scathing, dismissive. She didn’t believe a word of what he was saying and she had to make Bruin realise the falseness of Steffen’s behaviour. She wanted to reveal his brother’s true colours.

  A puzzled look crossed Steffen’s face. ‘Well, I’ll ask you, of course. For your forgiveness.’ He cleared his throat noisily.

  ‘So, you’ll give everything back, then.’

  ‘Why, you little—’ Scowling darkly, Steffen caught Bruin’s eye and swallowed a mouthful of wine hurriedly, spluttering. He wiped his lips with the back of his sleeve.

  ‘The castles that belonged to my father, the lands. My mother’s manor house.’ She folded her arms across her chest, wanting to goad him. ‘I think that was it, wasn’t it?’

  The smile dropped from Steffen’s face, his lips tightening to a harsh, grim line. He glanced up at Bruin. ‘It seems Mistress Striguil and I have much to talk about,’ he said, a dangerous edge to his voice. ‘It would surely bore you to death to hear it all; you might want to leave us for a while. There’s a fire in the kitchens.’

  ‘I’ll stay,’ Bruin said easily, adjusting his sprawling frame to the carved wooden chair. He stretched his legs out beneath the table.

  ‘It’s all very dull, Brother. Lady Striguil and I have unfinished business. It would be better if you left us.’

  ‘And I want to stay,’ Bruin said again. ‘This lady has no secrets from me.’

  Apart from one, thought Eva, shifting uncomfortably. That she loved him. A secret never to be revealed.

  ‘Who appointed you the lady’s protector all of a sudden?’ Steffen snorted angrily. ‘Very well, stay if you must. What you hear might change your opinion of her, mind you.’ He turned to Eva. ‘Now hear me, my lady. Your father and brother were rebels against the Crown; I took your castles and lands on the direct orders of the King, and only he can decide to give them back to you. I had nothing for myself, you understand? I am only sorry that you had to be the one caught up in all this.’

  ‘Do you really expect me to believe that?’ she responded, anger welling up within her, making her voice shrill. ‘That you’re sorry for what you have done? That you’re sorry that you held my arm over a blazing charcoal burner until I agreed to sign your documents? That you locked me in a chamber for days on end, with no food?’

  Steffen sat back in his chair, a smug satisfied smile on his face. ‘The woman’s clearly raving, Bruin. Surely you can see that? She’s completely mad; all that she says is a lie. Lie upon lie.’

  ‘I believe her.’ Bruin leant forward in his chair.

  Eva flicked a grateful glance towards him, but his attention was focused on Steffen, the lines in his tanned face stern and hard. ‘It is you who have lied to me, Brother. You pretended that you were dying so I would bring Eva back to you. And you clearly have no intention of apologising for what you have done…’

  Steffen stood up abruptly; his chair legs scraping back with a vicious sound against the floorboards. ‘That’s enough!’ he yelled, his index finger jabbing the air. ‘You have no idea what you are talking about—this woman—she’s made a fool out of you, just like Sophie did!’

  ‘We’re leaving,’ Bruin said quietly, tight-lipped. He rose, pulling Eva up out of her chair. The manservant, Simon, appearing from the kitchens, stopped suddenly, his eyes wide, sensing the tension in the hall. A coil of steam rose slowly from the platter he was holding: baked fish, several days old.

  ‘You’re going nowhere,’ Steffen threatened coldly. ‘Mistress Striguil has something of mine and I intend to have it.’

  ‘Just like you took everything of mine when we were boys, Steffen?’ Bruin’s eyes darkened dangerously. ‘You haven’t changed at all, have you? You can’t bear for anyone to have more than you, or to be better than you.’

  ‘I was always better than you!’ Steffen shouted, his face adopting a mottled hue. ‘You could scarcely hold a sword on the level—why, it was laughable! What a joke.’

  Bruin ignored him, tucking one arm casually through Eva’s, turning his back on his brother. ‘Keep walking,’ he muttered.

  The blow to Bruin’s head was sudden: an earthenware jug propelling through the air, smashing down brutally on to his skull. His great weight sagged against Eva, falling like a great oak, sprawling back unconscious across the floor. His head hit the floorboards with a ragged thump. Behind him, Steffen stood, a broken jug handle dangling from his fingers. ‘That’ll teach you to turn your back on me,’ he announced triumphantly. Tipping his chin up, he yelled for the castle guards.

  ‘Oh, my God, what have you done?’ Eva cried, dropping to her knees beside Bruin. A shard of broken earthenware drove through her gowns into her shin. Bruin’s eyes were closed, blood seeping from the wound, matting his golden-red hair. Through a haze of panic, Eva fought for sanity, for how to help Bruin. Stop the bleeding, she told herself, stop the bleeding now.

  Grabbing the edge of the tablecloth, she yanked it viciously. Goblets and dishes clattered down, a discordant, jangling sound tearing the air. Chunks of food bounced across the floorboards; wine flicked up in a rose-red arc
of liquid. She ripped at the cloth, wadding it into a ball, pressing the material hard against Bruin’s head to staunch the bleeding. The air from his lungs dabbled her wrists as she worked. Thank God.

  Steffen smiled, revealing rickety yellow teeth. ‘My, my, how touching,’ he said, his eyes widening with realisation. Then his expression stiffened, flicking over to the two guards who had come running at his shout. ‘Take him away, will you?’ Folding his arms over his pot belly, he cocked his head on one side. ‘Now, my dear,’ he said, in an odd, sibilant tone. ‘Let’s see how you fare without your protector.’

  Tears gathered in the corner of Eva’s eyes; she dashed them away angrily, watching in despair as Bruin was carried away, one guard clutching his shoulders, the other at his feet. The tablecloth, stained with his blood, hung between her hands. They bumped and jostled him against the door-frame as they made their way through. Then he was gone.

  ‘Let me go to him!’ Eva cried. ‘You can’t just fling him in a corner somewhere; his wound needs to be washed, tended.’ She flung the stained material on to the table.

  ‘All in good time, my lady,’ Steffen replied. ‘Why don’t you sit back down, so we can talk? I’m sure we can both be reasonable about this.’

  ‘Reasonable?’ she flared at him. ‘Since when have you ever been reasonable?’

  Steffen’s eyes flicked over her coolly. ‘You would do well to watch your mouth, my lady. I think we can both agree that I have the upper hand here.’