Harlequin Historical May 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Sarah Mallory

  ‘Why not?’ Pepin said. ‘He’s in there. You’re keeping him!’

  Balthus almost chuckled at the loud whispering of the six-year-old.

  ‘He’s not an animal,’ Clovis said.

  Clever boy, although he felt trapped like an animal. Whoever had constructed this space knew what they were doing. Weeks down here and the walls had closed in. Being pinned to the floor would break him soon. He’d be as mad as his brother Ian had been.

  ‘Keep your voices down,’ Séverine hissed. ‘Neither of you were to follow me in here.’

  ‘You asked us to carry these.’

  ‘You did, now go.’

  ‘Only a peek, Mama.’

  Balthus closed his eyes, stayed as still as he could. He may want revenge on their mother, but the boys were innocent. Two weeks since he was carved on, another week of fever. Days of listening to them sneak in and hearing their chatter. It was sometimes amusing, most times it made him melancholic. Ian didn’t know his sons like he did. Tied and staked to the ground in a pit in the middle of nowhere, and he’d spent more time with them than his brother ever had.

  So he kept quiet and his eyes shut so as to not scare them. Their mother may have betrayed him, but his heart...his heart still wanted to hear her children.

  ‘I still think he looks familiar,’ Clovis whispered.

  ‘Mama says he shouldn’t,’ Pepin said. ‘But he followed us, didn’t he?’

  ‘Out, both of you, now.’

  A scrambling of feet. ‘Does he have my treasure? It’s still down there.’

  ‘It’s not yours,’ Clovis said.

  ‘Boys. Go help Imbert.’

  ‘Clovis, too?’

  ‘Yes!’ Séverine hissed.

  Balthus’s eavesdropping came to some use last night. The walls of this hut were thin, the relentless wind could be felt above his head, and he was almost grateful to be insulated by the walls of the pit.

  From the broken words he could understand, some villagers wondered about Warstone attacks. Séverine appeared to have made herself a community, which pleased and terrified him. One or two people could escape a Warstone’s notice, but a village wouldn’t be able to. He hoped he’d simply misunderstood the situation, and not because villagers were preparing for an attack against his family but because they knew to prepare.

  A slamming of the door reported the boys had left.

  Balthus could hear the frustration in Séverine’s exhale. The boys were getting brave, coming inside. He’d observed enough of people over the years to understand Séverine’s conversation with her boys wasn’t anything unusual. All she did was admonish her children for their actions, but they were confident enough in her love for them to talk back.

  To be loved and cared for like that? To be disciplined and respected in a mother’s loving tone? It wasn’t any wonder why his heart wanted to hear their conversation; it was a wonder his applied reason, that she betrayed him, didn’t put a stop to it.

  ‘I know you’re awake.’ Séverine descended the ladder.

  Her perceived happiness had haunted him all his life. Now her cold maliciousness would frequent the rest of his meagre existence. He’d never be rid of her, and she’d pinned him to the floor to ensure it. So he’d lain there doing what he’d done for the last week: staring at her beauty and cursing himself for never recognising the monster beneath.

  ‘How do you fare today?’ She gave him an efficient look, noting the blankets he’d shoved aside some time in the middle of the night, and the soaked pillow beneath his head. Today, unlike the others, she didn’t offer to help make him more comfortable so the blanket painfully bunched in the small of his back, and the pillow that stank would remain. Good. He was tired of her false kindness.

  ‘How am I?’ he said. ‘I’m pinned to the floor. Someone poisoned me and carved my arm. I’m feeling like you’d better not let me free. Ever.’

  Other than a tenseness around her shoulders, she gave no indication she’d heard his threat as she set up the items on the floor. All routine, as if she was no more than a healer or a caring mother and he suffered a sore throat.

  Instead, he continued to be trussed to the floor like an animal. He might now have blankets and pillows. He might be given food and drink and she might change his linens and test for pus, but for the arm bound at his chest, he was stretched on the ground like he was to be drawn and quartered.

  At least before, when his hand had first been severed, he’d been surrounded by friends. He’d known the gift that it was and had treated it as such. He’d given away the magnificent Warstone fortress to his caregivers. Oh, there were other personal, political and strategic reasons to give such a stronghold to a loyal friend. Not wanting his parents to have it was one, but in the end, he’d done it because Louve and Biedeluue had been kind to him. And he’d wanted to change. He’d wanted to do good somewhere in the world, and if possible, to leave good behind.

  It was one of the reasons he’d taken this journey to find Séverine, to gain her support and thus, because he trusted, here he was.

  ‘Ask me how I am, then ignore what I tell you,’ he said. ‘Is this how we’ll start every morning?’

  ‘Until you’ve recovered.’

  ‘Then I’ll continue with my questions that I’ve asked every day and, of course, I expect you to ignore them as you always do.’

  He hated that he sounded like a petulant child. The pain, her betrayal. What hurt most was that she’d asked if they were past the lies, and he’d hoped they were.

  ‘Perhaps I’ll just assume you ignore me because you can’t remember all your lies.’

  She flinched and tried to cover it with a shrug. ‘Some of your lies may be truths.’

  That was interesting. ‘A phrasing my father often used. Spent much time with him, did you?’

  She slammed down the empty bucket he recognised. The one he had to relieve himself in. At least he was spared the indignity of that in front of her, but sharing it with any of the villagers twice a day was another wrongdoing he tallied against her.

  She knelt. ‘Don’t talk to me about that time.’

  Even he didn’t want to remember that particular past. He closed his own eyes tightly to rein himself in. He wasn’t himself. His hatred was violent and yet, this close, day after day, she touched him, spread the poultice and wrapped the linen. Day after day, he felt her warmth, caught her scent, and his body reacted. Love. Hate. He was unbalanced!

  If he had any reason, he should only revile her, but it only took him opening his eyes to know he couldn’t do it. Her profile revealed the downward grooves at the sides of her mouth, the dark circles under her eyes. From exhaustion or emotion? He shouldn’t care! She wasn’t who his family thought she was. They hadn’t realised when they’d forced her to marry Ian what malice lay beneath those freckles and abundant red hair.

  ‘Preparing everything for the day?’ he said. ‘Wasn’t my hand being chopped off once enough for you? Is this how it’ll be, with me pinned to the ground, and week by week you’ll slice off more of my arm?’

  She exhaled roughly, turned her back and pulled items out of the second bucket. Soon she was pounding some ingredients in a mortar. The smell was foul, and familiar. ‘That’s Sarah’s poultice for horses, isn’t it?’

  She stopped. ‘It’ll help with swelling.’

  ‘For what purpose?’

  She looked over her shoulder. ‘To heal you, Balthus. I’m here to heal you.’

  ‘Back to that again. That’s a jest when you’re the one who caused the injury. Why not simply slice my throat? I think I know why. I think you believe if you torture me long enough my family will find me. They’ll know that every sliver of my arm you carved off was for every slight they gave. Violent, effective messaging, if I survive it.’

  At the alarm in her eyes, a misshapen sense of victory coursed through h
im, and she turned to rearrange the supplies she’d brought. The same items she brought in every day. Honey, vinegar, clean linens.

  Soon she’d untuck the linen, lay his arm against his stomach, and everywhere he would feel her touch. His body was healing and reacting. The ravages of fever were gone, and he’d gained much strength. It would only be worse today. If only he could break free!

  ‘Stop pulling on the ropes, you’ll undo all my work,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll stop pulling on them the moment you let me go. Given the secure comfort you’ve provided I’m guessing that won’t be for a while.’

  He wanted to stop his words. It was his vulnerability. The fact Séverine had felled him and now thought him less of a man. The truth that soon her cool fingers warmed his skin, and he shivered.

  Her eyes flew to him.

  ‘I’m cold,’ he said.

  She adjusted blankets around his legs. He’d have to kick them away again.

  As if sensing his lie, she said, ‘I’m not certain Warstones deserve comfort.’

  Certainly not this one. ‘You kept the fire going in the hearth at night.’

  ‘For the guards,’ she said.

  ‘And rebuilt it this morning.’

  Her hair and clothes were different today, clean with more colour to complement her bright red plaited hair. How did she have such hair like that? Her sisters were mostly brown-haired. The green of the gown wasn’t of the quality of her upbringing, but something a bit finer and warm. He missed the dirt across her nose.

  ‘Have you already eaten?’

  The guard had shared food and conversation. Delicious food. ‘I didn’t know Sarah could bake like that.’

  ‘Something you would know if you visited your brother and family.’

  Séverine was right there, kneeling next to him. He couldn’t escape, couldn’t fight, he was at the whim of whatever she wanted. He hated it, but he hated it worse when she left. Some of the villagers talked, other villagers didn’t. None of them compared to the torture and delight when she was next to him.

  Today was different. Perhaps because the routine had been altered, but mostly it had to do with Séverine talking with him. He thought she didn’t want to mention family, and here they were talking of bread, and his time at court.

  He needed to remember her shoving him in a pit, poisoning him, and the agony of that blade when she’d sliced his arm. But already his body tensed in anticipation and need for her touch. He shouldn’t want conversation with this woman. His thoughts should be on revenge. He couldn’t trust her, yet if she stayed, he’d take whatever meagre bits she gave him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Séverine watched Balthus’s careful expression. The resentment was there, burning steadily, but another layer of emotion, as well. He was wondering if she was playing some kind of game.

  She was. He had some colour to his face. He lay there because he had no choice, but twice now he had stretched his legs as well as he could. The cut, and the stitches they’d made in his arm had held. Already the bandage she’d done the day before had no spotting, and enough time had passed.

  ‘I returned home occasionally when King Philip granted me leave,’ he said.

  Kings of countries, and all their courtiers. Séverine knew he spent much time at Philip’s court. So had her sisters, though they visited Provence, as well, the Marteldoises having closer ties to Provence. It been a long time since she’d cared for such things, and she didn’t want to be reminded because Beatrice was well married now with no correspondence between them. They’d turned all their backs on her the moment Ian had taken her hand. If her parents hadn’t rejoiced—

  ‘I didn’t see you, though. Perhaps you were hiding,’ he added.

  She had hidden. Balthus had rarely come to stay at Warstone Fortress, which had been a gift from his parents to Ian on his marriage. Lord and Lady Warstone, however, though inhabiting one of their smaller estates nearby, visited frequently at the fortress.

  So Séverine had hidden as long as Lady Warstone had allowed it. When Balthus used to come, she could remain in her private chambers indefinitely, which suited her purposes.

  Despite her marriage, she’d never stopped thinking of that moment at the tapestry when that strange warmth had unfolded between them. She hadn’t wanted to see him again, terrified her true thoughts would become apparent, and the cruel and harsh treatment would become unbearable.

  ‘Or perhaps I hid because I was in confinement. Does that satisfy your curiosity? Because I think that should be the end of the questions before I let you rot here.’ She made her tone as haughty as possible to end this topic of painful memories.

  ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d think you didn’t like me much.’

  ‘The running away from your family should have been enough.’

  ‘It was the family, and not particularly Ian who caused you to leave?’ Balthus said. ‘He would’ve liked that.’

  Something of the way he talked about Ian made her pause; had he mentioned his brother in the past tense? Did that matter? Ian was the past, and she shouldn’t care. ‘Don’t talk to me about him, or about your family.’

  ‘I was under the impression that your carving on me had something to do with them. If not, there’s no reason for you to be here.’

  ‘We were meant to stay the end of winter and spring with my parents, and I’m here because you’re injured...and healing.’

  A muscle pulsed in his jaw at that. ‘Doesn’t mean you should stay in this village.’

  ‘My reasons for being here are my own, Warstone.’

  ‘You seem fierce when it comes to your children, and yet you risk them by staying here.’

  ‘Don’t talk about my children,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t talk of your children or family. You say you want answers, but you won’t believe anything I say, and by staying you risk an attack on this village,’ he said. ‘So, you’re keeping me in a pit to simply taunt me?’

  What was she doing? Balthus was correct... Sarah and Imbert were right. The moment she’d shoved him in the pit, she should have grabbed her children and run. She’d given the excuse that he might be hurt and, in truth, leaving a Warstone here would bring trouble to them. It didn’t matter if Balthus remained alive or was dead, a massacre on these few homes was always a possibility.

  But her staying here wouldn’t prevent that from happening, just as trapping him in the pit wouldn’t stop her from being dragged back to her husband and his family. Still, when Balthus had arrived at this village, she’d had to do...something.

  ‘Again, I don’t have to explain myself to you,’ she said. ‘You didn’t tell the truth that you simply want to converse as family, and I told you I won’t return. I think it’s you taunting me.’

  His eyes narrowed. She bit back any fears. Predators did this, but he was the one trapped.

  ‘What made you push me into a pit?’ he said softly. ‘What made you poison me, and now talk of Sarah and her bread? I will be free of this soon. Then what?’

  Heat flushed her cheeks. Did she want revenge, or to shame him? His family deserved it. For the moment she had been forced to wed, for the thousands of criticisms she’d received every day, for his parents threatening her children.

  For Ian confusing her. The cruelty, the coldness when he’d been awake, and the soft words he’d spoken in his sleep. For making her feel something for him other than fear, and making the decision to leave him all that much harder.

  ‘What do I want to do with you?’ she said. ‘I’ll show you.’

  Every word Balthus cursed at her were slices to her heart, every bit of his discomfort a weight on her shoulders. Any word she offered as explanation or sympathy he spat back at her. He refused to hear her anymore. Whatever shared moments they’d had before the knife had cut him were gone.

  Her bruised heart hammered the
discord continually in her chest, but it wasn’t only the words he spoke now that haunted her. A fortnight of tending this man, of listening to his words while he’d been half-delirious with pain and fever. He’d muttered, he’d screamed, he’d revealed. Could anything he’d said during that time be true or trusted? Had Ian really tried to kill him? Where was her husband now? She’d asked, but he’d gone quiet. That frightened her most and she’d never asked again.

  There had been other words, as well. Words laced with pain and such heartache. Did he love or hate her? He’d said both. The latter she could believe—it was what he’d said while he’d still been conscious before she’d tied him down and done what she had. But love? That wasn’t possible. They didn’t know each other. So why did his jumbled words affect her? There’d been nothing tender about Balthus since she’d trapped him in the pit. Fierce words, and promises of retribution. Her worry and caring for him made no sense. It had echoes of Ian talking in his sleep, and her heart pained her!

  Now she was in the pit with Balthus alone. That was unusual. Most days since the fever had broken, she waited until Imbert or Sarah arrived. But Imbert was concerned in the progress to prepare the village for attack, and build new places for them to hide. No one wanted to travel while the weather was still bad.

  And she didn’t want to wait this morning. Today she wanted to test the strength of his arm. To see if what she’d done had been successful.

  Soon they would know. She merely needed to get through this. Just as she’d got through that day when Imbert had pegged him to the ground, and she’d held the blade. Balthus had already been rousing from their moving his body to wrap the ropes around him. When she’d made the quickest slash, he hadn’t cursed or roared. But a strangled sound had wrenched from his throat as he’d thrown his head back, and the cords of his neck had strained. Panting, he’d swung his head wildly about until he’d seen her. She’d never forget the jarring shock in his eyes.

  Aware that those same grey eyes were on hers now, Séverine moved the bucket to the side and knelt closer to him. This part of their day never got easier. It’d been like this every morning since his fever had broken. Harsh words, then this utter, eerie silence while he stared at her.