Harlequin Historical May 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Sarah Mallory

  ‘Afterwards?’ she said. ‘After your fever broke, or when I entered the stables? You acted like I mattered. You told me about the legend. I didn’t appreciate what that meant or how much trust you placed in me, but I understand that now, and yet you still lied to me about the most important fact!’

  ‘I’m...trying!’ he said. ‘Some deeds and words I say and do are just impulses I fight against but can’t always succeed. For years I relied on the Warstone training simply so I didn’t die. But I hate that what I do hurts you.’

  He stepped forward, and she gave him a warning look, and he suddenly stopped.

  ‘I’m a coward. That’s the reason I didn’t tell you. I...kept my dead brother between us in the hope that if I couldn’t stay away, you would. I’ve wanted you for so long, Séverine, it seems more than a lifetime. The memory of you standing in front of that tapestry has fulfilled my soul more than water ever did my body. I had no chance against you once I stood next to you, once I truly understood you as a mother.’

  ‘But why keep me away, then?’

  He held up his truncated arm. ‘This is one of the reasons.’

  ‘Your arm?’

  ‘I’m not whole. I’m not...like one of your beautiful tapestries.’

  She studied his tortured grey eyes. Despite her feelings towards him, he was beautiful, but in that raw unfinished way she found far more intriguing than any completed tapestry. He’d said he was trying to be good, and despite everything...she believed him, responded to him.

  Was she being fair to him? Was Sarah right that she wasn’t looking at everything?

  She had in the beginning. She’d kept noticing the differences in him, but then...the parchment and Ian. But were those just...messages? Balthus was no messenger, he was a Warstone after all. Maybe, just maybe she needed to look at him like a man again.

  Maybe he wanted to be seen like a man since he showed her his arm, thought himself not beautiful because of it. But that wasn’t all.

  ‘What’s the other reason?’

  ‘I’m a Warstone!’ he said. ‘You ran from us before, and I don’t know what you had to endure. I could guess, but—’

  ‘Do you know Ian threw a fruit tray at me? Apparently, your mother isn’t the only one who hates fruit.’

  She tried to keep her tone humorous, but he turned his head, his eyes snaring hers before his lids dropped.

  ‘I’m...sorry,’ he said.

  Séverine waited for him to continue, afraid he might. It wasn’t a good memory. Ian had thrown the tray at her. She’d ducked, but the mess behind her, the noise...

  Shaking, embarrassed, she had picked it up, and he’d been very tender afterwards. That was the only violence he’d ever shown her. Never had he hit her, never had he truly harmed her, but it had taken her years to understand the rigidness of his needs.

  ‘What else?’ she demanded.

  The corner of his mouth curved. A smile, as if she pleased him. ‘Everything I say to you is going to be disjointed.’

  ‘Why? Because you can’t tell the truth and are still trying to hide?’

  He nodded solemnly. ‘Some of that perhaps. Even now I’m struggling to tell you the truth.’

  ‘That’s a start,’ she said. ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘Everything I do since you came back into my life pains me. Tell the truth, my feelings, showing my vulnerability, my weaknesses. Undoing a lifetime of doing the opposite. Undoing a lifetime of being taught and then punished that I must do the opposite. Standing here before you, carving out whatever this is in my chest, it hurts. You hurt me.’

  She snorted.

  He spun in a circle. ‘I’m getting this all wrong, but there’s too much to tell. Do I start with Ian or me?’

  She saw it then. The pain. Some of it reflected her own, but there was more for him. Somehow she knew there was more agony. ‘What’s easier?’

  He huffed out a breath. She’d surprised him. ‘Ian, though if I told you everything, you wouldn’t believe it.’

  ‘I’ve been gone for six years, but he’s haunted everything I’ve done. I want to know everything.’

  ‘I thought Ian married you because you were the youngest and maybe the most impressionable, but I think it was because you didn’t need him for anything. You didn’t need Warstone money or power. He’d have to earn you.’

  How would he?

  ‘You were at the most lavish event I’ve ever attended, and all you did was stare at a tapestry as if you hadn’t a care in the world about any of us. Then you escaped and eluded him for years.’

  ‘Because he didn’t care about me or his children!’

  It was the sorrow in his eyes that doused her anger and frustration. ‘He cared, and...he did return to this keep. Once. I didn’t want to tell you.’

  Because the truth was horrible. ‘To kill me? To kill our boys?’

  The look on Balthus’s face told her the truth. That spike of fear and horror that had dimmed over time surged again. She covered her mouth to hold back her cry.

  Balthus stretched out his arm as if to stop her thoughts. ‘He might not have done it, Séverine. He might have just come to see you, but I do know he was frustrated you were out of his reach because after that...he came after me.’

  How? To kill him? It seemed he mourned Ian’s death. ‘I cannot believe he is gone.’

  ‘I’ve known a few months more than you.’

  ‘I ran from him for six years. He terrified me. I haven’t seen him in all that time and yet... Why did he pick me? I know I keep asking, but...’

  ‘I can only guess, as I have done a thousand times since then. Your sisters are beautiful but polished and hardened. The announcement was coveted by many and the Warstones were meant to be the sun. You, however, were staring at the far wall in the hall, turned away from everyone.’

  ‘That tapestry,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t malleable or naive.’

  He gave a small smile. ‘Maybe he just wanted to be near something pure in a way we never were.’

  ‘He got my fear. That’s all I felt when I turned, and... I don’t think I tried to change for him.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have encouraged anything else. Your fear kept you wary and probably safe.’

  ‘I’m piecing together the man, but even if he told me everything, I couldn’t love him. I think I understand what you mean about my sisters. Ian was hardened like them, but because of the boys I miss him.’

  ‘There’s always more.’

  Her expression dimmed. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I miss him, too, though Ian tried to kill me.’ He gave an uneven smile. ‘See, I told you it wasn’t easy.’

  Balthus exhaled. ‘He came after me. I went to Reynold. But Ian and I still had a confrontation. Ian’s death occurred at the same time I lost my hand. When I came to, I didn’t know what hurt worse. But I know it hurts now just telling you this.’

  This part of their lives was terrible, and yet he’d said it was easier than telling about him.

  ‘I’m...glad you told me. I knew one part of him. If you tell me the other...or at least more, I can then face my children one day when they ask and tell them why I forced them away from their father.’

  ‘Don’t...don’t go there.’

  Something he’d said pricked her heart and she felt the bitterness and fear pouring from her. ‘Why not? I had no other thoughts than those. He talked in his sleep, and I came to care for him because of those mutterings, but when he was awake, he terrified me. How can I explain the contradictions to the boys?’

  ‘When they do want to know, they’ll be ready. That time doesn’t have to be now. I’m a man, Séverine, and have waited to understand about family and love all my life. Trust me when I say they’ll wait for the story. They’ll wait because they know it’s worth it.’

  Was it simply because he was a Warstone
, and therefore something for her sisters but not for her? She thought of the life she’d wanted at the abbey, but she loved her sons more. She wished for quiet, for study, to read books and question philosophers again, but she’d never give up her children.

  ‘You gave me little reaction when I told you he loved you.’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘You need to know.’

  ‘He never said it to me, and he was dying when he said it to you.’

  ‘But it’s our actions, isn’t it? You always said you trust my silences. You can’t trust what a Warstone says, but you can our actions.’

  ‘He threw a tray at me. He left me to your mother who—’

  ‘Some of that was his madness, but also...’ He looked down at his feet, the left one tapping a little, before he looked up. ‘I didn’t believe he loved you at first, either. The more time I spent with you, I almost convinced myself that he couldn’t have loved you or the boys because if he had, how could he have stayed away? But then... Did you ever wonder why this keep was here or why he called it “Forgotten”? It couldn’t truly be forgotten when an abbey was so close. I think the foundations were here and he had it built for you because it was near an abbey. Something he knew you cared for.’

  Could it be true? Could Ian have been a better man that she’d thought? Could Balthus?

  ‘My brother loved you,’ Balthus said, as if he’d heard her inner thoughts. ‘I understand it now because I’m doing the same thing as Ian.’

  ‘Lying to me?’

  ‘Trying to keep you away from me, and that’s why I lied. Maybe at first, I was scared to trust, but when that went away, I was scared of my feelings for you. I’d had them so long, and then you were suddenly there. It was too much.’

  ‘Is this the difficult part?’

  ‘And easy.’ His eyes were stormy grey.

  ‘Why me, Balthus?’

  He took the steps necessary to stand in front of her. ‘I love you. I’ve always loved you since that first day. Over the years I called it obsession or fascination, but I know it was something more because I couldn’t... I couldn’t stop thinking of you.’

  ‘You noticed me.’

  ‘I couldn’t look away from you.’

  ‘Because of my hair, because I was the fourth sister,’ she said. Her tone still held some bitterness, but even though she questioned and accused, she heard in her own voice, felt in her own breath, the need for his words.

  ‘Because you were lost in that tapestry,’ he said. ‘Do you remember it?’

  ‘It was a hunting scene.’

  His brows drew in, his eyes a little in awe as if he couldn’t believe she remembered. What would he say if she told him it reminded her of him?

  ‘When you saw something about it you liked,’ he said, ‘you hovered your hand over it as if you were tracing the artistry or thread. And you smiled, you smiled, and I swear the gold in that thread dimmed in the brilliance of your joy.’

  Joy. It was one of the words he’d used when he’d been feverish. When he’d slept. He’d meant...her.

  ‘How?’

  ‘That day you were all I could watch. I couldn’t keep my eyes off you. You moved and I swear my body moved with you. Even when Ian took your hand and walked you across that hall to stand by his side at the dais, even when he took you away completely and you disappeared. You have been, and will always be, all I can see.

  ‘So I lied. I lied for reasons I didn’t understand until I did. I wanted you by my side. So what if I lied to do it? Was is a lie just to steal a touch, a few words, to see your eyes soften as you looked at your boys? How terrible is that in all the acts of depravity I’ve had to do?

  ‘I could even justify it. If I was gone, who would protect you? The irony is not lost on me that I was the darkness you needed protection from.’

  ‘You love me.’

  There was something in Balthus’s grey eyes. Something warm, tender, wanting, and Séverine couldn’t look away. Not when he placed his hand on her cheek, not when he brushed his callused thumb against her chin, the roughened tip just scraping the bottom of her lip.

  ‘I could never forget your smile. Even when I tried, when you were my brother’s wife, when you gave one son and then another to him, when he protected you from our parents. When he was trying to be good to you in the madness of his mind, I tried to not feel that warmth in my heart. Because there were days, weeks it hurt, it seared because you could never be mine.

  ‘You were the only one who showed me happiness, the only memory in my long life that gave me any warmth. How could I not love you?’

  ‘I’m sunshine, aren’t I?’ She grabbed his hand in both of hers, pressed it between them just above his bound arm.

  His brows drew in, and she loved the bewildered expression on his face. That vulnerability. How could he be a Warstone when he showed his emotions so? Or was it just her he showed them to?

  ‘When you were fevered you kept muttering these words about joy and sunshine, I didn’t know what they meant, but then you said them again.’

  ‘I was asleep under the tree when I was supposed to be protecting you,’ he said.

  ‘You turned towards me and called me sunshine, and I knew with all my heart that that was what I wanted to be.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ he said, his eyes half wary, half hopeful. Underneath their entwined fingers she felt his heartbeat increase. ‘That you trust me...that you...have feelings for me? Or did I ruin it all by not telling you, not explaining enough?’

  ‘Earlier you talked of wrongs, and how you couldn’t do anything right...but that would imply there was a right.’

  When he looked as if he would talk, she released her hand and patted his chest. ‘I know you won’t believe this, but for once it’s not all about you and your family.’

  He looked as if he couldn’t believe his good fortune.

  ‘If you could see your expression right now.’ She snorted. ‘I think I’ll memorise this.’

  ‘What am I doing?’

  ‘You look...worried. Hopeful.’

  ‘I’m both. I’m more,’ he said eagerly. ‘There’s more I can tell you, if that will help. If that would make a difference? I would do anything to—’

  ‘Balthus, let me talk.’ When he stilled, she continued, ‘I did believe Ian was alive when I kissed you, touched you. I believed he was alive all those times when we talked and you helped with the boys. There hasn’t been one moment with you when I haven’t been unfaithful to my husband.’

  ‘But he’s gone.’

  ‘I didn’t know that when I did those actions. You don’t understand yet, do you? You say you’re a coward, that you have this family. You say you have all these flaws and that’s why you keep fighting against this, but you forget... I’m flawed, too. I’ve made mistakes. I knew my husband was struggling, but he also scared me. I didn’t appreciate that he dropped me off at the keep to protect me until you told me, but I should have seen the truth of that. I should have known there was a part of him deliberately not finding me. Maybe I didn’t deserve to be found.’

  ‘Never,’ he said with such vehemence she wanted to believe him.

  ‘I’m not perfect. I took a man’s children away from him. There was still good in him. And though he may have harmed me, I could never see him harming them. My reasoning was that I didn’t want them to turn out like him. That was possible. But now he’s dead, and I’ll be haunted by the fact that I wounded him by running. And to make it worse, there was only one man I wanted, and he wasn’t my husband.’

  ‘You’re saying you’re flawed...like me.’

  ‘I’m also saying I don’t think there are rights and wrongs. Not when it comes to love. It just is.’ She breathed in. ‘I’m saying the same thing you said to me.’

  ‘Which is?’ he said shamelessly. He knew. The light in his grey eyes
, the wicked smile. The man knew what she wanted to tell him.

  ‘I love you, too.’

  He nodded as if she’d given a correct answer. ‘What is my expression telling you now?’

  ‘You. I think you’re showing me you. That feeling in your chest as if something is squeezing it tightly and you can’t breathe, that’s love. I feel it, too. I liked your smile that day, Balthus. I liked you looking at me. I liked it that you reminded me of the tapestry I was looking at.’

  ‘The hunting scene?’

  ‘It had gold and a lot of red. It was brutal and trapped in a moment, but still very much alive. When I turned to you, I saw the same thing. You have always been alive to me. I don’t know if that makes sense.’

  ‘To me it does, and you could not have said more encouraging words.’ He captured her hand within his again, kissed her palm, once, twice. ‘Séverine?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I think I like this expression you’re showing me,’ he rumbled.

  She wiggled her hand free and brushed her cheek. ‘The one where my face is all red and tears are welling up my eyes?’

  He gave a slow nod. ‘It’s now my favourite.’

  ‘You had one before? Oh, yes, at the betrothal celebration.’

  He trailed his finger along her lips as if he remembered her smile. ‘No, that got usurped by your expression when you peered into the pit.’

  That wasn’t a good memory. ‘My fear and anger at you was your favourite?’

  ‘No, your worry and anger for me. The time in the woodcutter’s hut, you were worried for Clovis and Pepin. But that time you peered into the pit, your feelings were for me.’

  Her heart turned over. This man. How could she not love him?

  ‘And so this is it?’ she said.

  Balthus had never thought he would be so fortunate. Never dreamed a wish he’d made when he was young could actually come true. Séverine, telling him she loved him. He didn’t want to talk anymore. He only wanted her in his arms for as long as the boys would let them.

  But she had demanded he tell her everything, and he would do his best. He wanted no secrets between them. And there were other consequences that needed to be pointed out.