He strode from the dungeon to see about coordinating Marin’s bath. Being here, surrounded by wealth when he had so little, reminded of sisterly love as his own sibling clung to the edge of life, it was more than he could bear. Surely Kerr would have received the missive by now, or at least would get it soon, and would arrive to claim this coveted castle.
It was only a matter of time.
Marin had wanted to linger forever amid the perfumed steam of her bath. After a night in the dungeon, among the darkness and the things moving within, she had craved such luxuries as her daily bath.
While down there, she had noticed the captured guards were not her entire force. Sir Richard had been able to discreetly convey some were in hiding. Not all was lost, then. For a plan could be devised with those in hiding.
Anice helped Marin into a simple gray kirtle with a side-less surcoat of deep sapphire blue, while Piquette snored on the floor.
“I wish you’d killed Bran,” Anice said. Her fingers flew deftly over the lacings. “Ella said she found him pawing through Papa’s journal today. No doubt to read through our accounts.”
Marin put her fingertips to her temples and applied pressure to the thrumming pain there. She wanted a trencher of hot food and the embrace of her comfortable bed.
“He has refrained from harming our people,” Marin said.
“And what of you?” Anice whispered, despite them being alone in the room together. “What did he do to you before he dragged you through the castle and threw you in the dungeon?”
Marin’s cheeks went hot with the searing memory of his mouth on hers, the power of his naked torso. How he’d put his thumb to her lips, and she’d sucked the blunt tip. The eager heat of lust pulsed to life between her legs at the memory. She swallowed. “He kissed me.”
“Are you still a maiden?” Anice hissed.
“Aye.”
Anice’s expression relaxed as she affixed a gauzy veil over Marin’s hair and secured it with a gold circlet. Perhaps it was foolish to wear such a modest headdress indoors when she considered the intimacy she’d shared with Bran the prior evening.
Anice’s gaze skimmed over her in a final survey. “You look beautiful, my dear sister.” She settled her hands on Marin’s shoulders and met her eyes levelly. “Be careful with him.”
“I thought I was supposed to be the mother to us all,” Marin said in jest.
Anice smirked and nudged Marin toward the door. Marin paused to rub the top of Piquette’s velvety head before departing the room.
Bran stood in the hall, awaiting her, his arms crossed over the red doublet he wore. His sleeves had been rolled up to his elbows, exposing his forearms that were powerful with muscle, a reminder to the way his body had been when he'd taken off his leine. He was terribly strong. Such knowledge left the baser part of her swelling with feminine appreciation.
“You didn't trust me?” She put her hand to her hip.
“Ye did try to kill me.”
It was a fair argument. Not that she would admit as much. “Where shall we go? To see Nan?”
Her stomach clenched even as she spoke. She was about to lay bare their lives, their possessions, to this thief. Aye, it kept her people safe, but it did not mean she had to like the abysmal task.
If he noticed the bitterness in her tone, he ignored it and simply nodded. “Aye, we can start in the kitchen.”
Together they made their way down the hall. “Leila seems verra fond of ye,” he said.
Marin slid him a side glance. Was he truly attempting to be conversational?
“Our mother died as a result of a reiver’s attack.” She did not bother to keep the disgust from her voice this time. “She died soon after Leila's birth.”
“Ye became her mother.”
“Of sorts. I knew Leila wouldn't have the years of our mother's affection like the rest of us had. My mother was…” Marin couldn't finish her sentence. She couldn't share the goodness—–the kindness and love—–everything wonderful her mother had embodied. Not with this man who exploited love as a means to an end.
“My mother was extraordinary,” she said finally.
“Was that when ye were taken? When she was attacked by the reivers?” he pressed.
Marin pursed her lips. She didn't want to talk about the incident, not now or ever. And certainly not with this marauder.
They arrived in the sunny kitchen before he could insist on an answer and found Nan pointing to a corner as she directed an unfamiliar man.
“Put it there,” Nan said in her authoritative tone. “Then you need to get the pheasant from the ovens.”
The man had dark hair and a stocky torso blanketed with a reiver’s gambeson. He followed Nan’s orders with ready obedience.
“I'd like information on the stores,” Bran said.
“I told you, not until you come with Lady Marin.” Nan swiveled toward him. The look of consternation on her face stretched into a pleasant smile. “Ah, I see you did. And was it her idea you put one of your brutes to work in the kitchens to help save my old back?”
Marin remembered suddenly the order Bran had issued in the dungeon. It explained why he'd sent one of his men to the kitchen. The consideration was surprising. No doubt Cat would be pleased at such a discovery, but then she always tried to see the best in people. Even those who did not deserve it. Marin, however, held tight to her suspicions.
Bran shrugged as if the act were of little consequence. “Ye make fine food, which means ye should remain happy.”
Nan wiped her hands on her white apron. “Ach, the way to a man’s appreciation is always through his stomach. My Hewie had an appreciation for my cooking, he did. ’Course he showed me all I know.” She nodded with pride. “And he said I was the loveliest lass in all of England and Scotland.” Her eyes glittered with the joy of memories, the way they always did when she spoke of her late husband.
“He taught ye well. Yer oat cakes were some of the best I’ve ever had.” Bran gave her a charming grin and it lightened the fierceness of his face.
“You should try my meat pies.” Nan waggled her hands excitedly in the air. “I’ll make them for supper this eve. It was the one thing I always done better than my Hewie, God rest his soul.”
“I will anticipate it,” Bran said with such earnestness, Marin knew he truly did.
This man speaking to the cook, who had gone out of his way to see to Nan’s comfort, was not the same man who had put Marin in the dungeon. Nor was he the same man who had used his tongue to kiss her, tease her, seduce her. She shivered at the memory of who that man had been.
“May I show him the stores, my lady?” Nan asked.
Marin nodded and quickly averted her face so Nan wouldn't see how much it truly did bother her for the inner workings and intricacies of the castle to be laid open before this usurper. He followed Nan to the larder. At some point, Bixby had emerged from the shadows and trotted at Bran’s heels.
“Are these peaches?” Bran pulled the jar from its shelf and pulled the stopper free. The cinnamon and sharp vinegar scent of the sweet peaches filled the room. He pulled one free before Marin could protest and plucked a succulent peach from the juice. He held it out to Marin.
Any appetite she might have had evaporated. She shook her head.
He stepped closer. “I want it tasted to ensure it hasna been poisoned.” He held the peach before her mouth and his gaze darkened. Like when he’d put his thumb to her lips, and she'd sucked it into her mouth.
Heavens, what had she been thinking?
Her cheeks scorched with the memory. “I am without appetite.” She backed away.
“I love peaches and will gladly taste for you.” Nan stepped between them and opened her mouth wide enough so the hairs along her chin prickled.
Bran dropped the peach into her mouth. It was all Marin could do to keep from laughing when Nan snapped her mouth shut and noisily chewed the pickled fruit. She winked at Marin and nodded definitively to Bran. “'Tis not poisoned.”
He nodded his appreciation and placed the stopper back in the jar. “I️t appears I'm no' hungry either.” He handed her the remainder of the peaches. “For ye.”
Nan tucked the jar on a shelf and returned to the larder with Bran.
“What's in there?” he asked.
Marin didn't bother to come closer to see where he indicated.
At least, not until Nan hesitated a long while before answering, “Those are preserved eels.”
“I love eel,” Bran declared. “Cook them for supper tonight.”
“Nay.” Marin entered the larder. “We’re to have meat pies if you recall.”
“Aye.” He clapped his hands together. “On the morrow then.”
“Nay.”
He gave her an exasperated frown. “Why?”
“They're my father’s favorite,” Marin said by way of explanation.
“He's no' here.”
“But he will be,” she insisted. “We always have his favorite meal prepared the night he returns home.”
Her heart lightened to think of it, her father at the head of the table once more, regal and full of perfect authority. He would set everything to rights.
Her stomach dropped. Could it be set to rights?
Bran grunted at her refusal to allow him to eat the eels, but he did not press the issue. “The stores appear sufficient.” His tone was airy, as though he meant to sound important in his declaration.
“Aye, for now.” Nan returned to a table with several bowls covered with linen. She lifted a ball of dough from one and began to knead it. “I think we will be needing more on account of so many men to feed.”
Bran's brow furrowed.
“I'll see to it, Nan,” Marin offered. She'd be damned if she allowed Bran to disturb the order of things in her carefully constructed world.
Nan graciously inclined her head. “Aye, my lady.”
“Matters here are now settled.” Bran indicated the door. “Next I've a mind to see the solar and examine the accounts.”
Marin's chest tightened. “The accounts for the kitchen?”
“For the castle.”
Her stomach knotted at the prospect. If seeing him go through the larder was terrible, how would she handle him reading through her father’s accounts? Suddenly she found herself regretting her promise not to kill him.
6
Bran knew Marin didn't want him to look through the accounts. It was evident in the snap of her hem at her ankles as she strode onward in an angry march. As much as he knew he had to see the accounts to ensure the castle continued to run without issue, going through the earl's personal effects left him discomfited.
She pushed through the door and led him to the desk. Ella lay curled on the window seat, her head bent over yet another book. This one had a blue cover with gold paint scrolling up along its spine. She didn't bother to look up as they entered.
Marin swept a bit of hair from Ella's eye, the way a mother might do to a child. “Is the light sufficient?”
“Mmm…” Ella murmured. Then her head snapped up and her blue eyes went wide. “Marin.” She leapt to her feet with her finger carefully pinched in the book’s pages and threw her arms around her sister. “You've been freed?”
“Depends,” Bran said.
They both turned toward him, smiles fading.
He braced his hand over the polished top of the desk. “I need compliance.”
Marin touched her sister's shoulder. “Please leave us, Ella.”
“Mayhap I—”
Marin nudged her toward the door and Ella cast a regretful look back at him before leaving the room. The door clicked closed.
“I know ye dinna want to do this,” he said.
Marin shot him a sharp glare. “Do you?”
He hardened his resolve against her ire. “The accounts.”
“It's there.” She pointed to the second drawer. The one where he'd found the book Ella had deemed he’d mistreated and taken from the solar.
“Ella has it,” he countered. “She took it the other day.”
Marin frowned. “That's ridiculous. It never leaves this drawer.” She pulled the drawer and bent over it, her fingers graceful as they gently sifted through the parchments and vellum within. Her delicate lavender scent rose around him, teasing and alluring.
She wore a modest veil over her fair hair. While it looked lovely on her, he much preferred her hair uncovered, the unbound strands flowing and free for him to stroke. Though their time alone had been brief, he remembered too well the softness of her skin, the silky coolness of her hair. He could all too easily see himself laying abed with her, playing his fingers over those golden locks in a moment of post-coital reverence.
Oblivious to his thoughts, she rose and looked at the desk's barren surface. “You're correct. It appears to be missing.” She put a hand to her hip. “Why would Ella have taken it?”
He wanted to pull the veil off her head and let the little circlet fall to the ground. He needed her in his arms, making those lusty moans she had the night before, her slender body arching in helpless abandon against him. “She said I wasna treating a book properly.”
Marin smiled secretly to herself. “Aye, that sounds like Ella.”
Bran found his gaze drifting to Marin's pink mouth and he imagined his thumb between her lips, the shy, curious way she’d suckled the digit. “We can reclaim it and speak to the steward,” he suggested.
Though it was not truly what he’d wanted to suggest. He didn’t like this hard Marin, the one who treated him with contempt and ire. Nay, he wanted the woman last night, the seductress who was surprised at her own enjoyment of their light play.
Her sweet mouth thinned with agitation. “Why is it you wish to speak to the steward, to discover everything you’ve gained in your capture of Werrick Castle?”
“That isna it.”
“What is it then?” She lifted her head defiantly and the gold circlet around her head winked in the light shining in through the leaded glass window.
If he told her he was securing the castle for the Kerr warden, she would no doubt fight him even more than she did now. Nay, this lass did not have cause to know the true plan. He merely required her assistance, which she already had promised.
His gut twisted with unease. He hated this using of women, forcing them into compliance. More than anything, he hated being at the beck and call of a privileged noble. His life, and that of Ena’s, was expendable and exploitable.
“I need yer support,” he answered finally.
The skin around Marin’s eyes tightened, giving her a shrewd appearance. Even shrewd, she was still bonny.
“More than simply speaking to Nan and the other servants,” she surmised.
He nodded. “It will keep everyone safe. Yer people and mine.”
“And give you exactly what you want without the risk of having us revolt.” She gave a knowing smirk. “Aye, I know that is why you seek my permission. You know your men are fickle in their loyalty, and you know eventually my people might rise up if your numbers lessen.”
Damn but the woman was too clever for her own good. “People will die on both sides.”
“And you may lose all you have purloined.”
He stared at Marin, who was as stubborn as she was lovely. “It will keep us all from loss.”
She folded her arms over her chest.
“Will ye help me?”
“Nay.” Her brows drew together, and her face went pink. “I will not let you stand there and gloat about how in one day you have managed to acquire what one man took a lifetime to garner.”
Her words plucked at a nerve Bran had not realized he had. If her people did revolt, if they took back Werrick, Ena would die. A band of tension worked its way around his chest. “Ye will help me,” he said in a low, threatening tone.
“Or what?” Her chin angled toward him with defiance. “Will you hit me? After all your reassurances we would be left unharmed. Will you be a liar as well as
a thief?” She tensed. “And I warn you, I will hit back.”
Anger lashed through Bran. He fell prey to her goading and it only served to increase the ferocity of his rage.
“I dinna hit women.”
She scoffed. “Due to your noble character, I presume.”
He stared down at her. His blood boiled to scalding in his veins, and his breath came hard and fast. “Ye're the most stubborn and maddening woman I've ever met,” he growled.
A wicked grin curled her sensual mouth. “Such knowledge brings me great delight.”
The emotions snapping through him were too overwhelming; her face too alight with the passion of their argument for him to ignore. He wouldn't hit Marin, but he certainly could kiss her.
Marin had won their little battle. It was as evident in Bran's glare as it was in the pounding of her heart. His eyes were bright with something unsaid and his stare was so intense, it reminded her of when she'd gone to him. His kiss, his touch, both played out in her mind more often than they ought to, and they were doing so again now.
“Will you hit me?” she asked. Her voice came out with a throaty quality, a note of sensuality she had not intended.
“Nay.” He slid his hands to her face. “No' when I'd rather kiss ye.”
His mouth came down on hers and Marin's world blossomed to life in a wave of undeniable anticipation. His lips were softer than she remembered, the rasp of his beard over her sensitive skin rougher. His hands, the delight at his touch far more thrilling. She ran her hands over his shirt where his chest was firm with muscle beneath.
It was all too easy to recall the lines of his body, the strength shadowed by the light from the hearth. She opened her mouth to him, and his ready tongue swept against hers. A whimper slipped from her throat.
He growled at the sound she made, and it sent lovely shivers running through her. His hands slid from her face, delicately brushing down the naked skin of her neck and collarbones before skimming down the length of her body to her waist. He pulled her to him, against the wonderful solid wall of his body. And she melted.
Marin's Promise (Borderland Ladies Book 1) Page 6
