Never had the familiar sounds of every day life been so unwelcome—the echoing clip-clop of hooves trotting over the cobbles, the rumbling of a wagon’s wheels, a bright burst of childish laughter, the clank of armor, and the jests and shouts of soldiers passing beneath his window.
Edgeway castle. He groaned. Never had he hated any place more.
“Anselm?”
Martha. Why was she still here? Did she not have a husband to harass? “Just leave me be,” he muttered. His mouth was parched and foul tasting—a legacy of the bitter draft he had previously consumed—and his head pounded like buggery. But apart from that, thank the spirits, there was little other pain.
Before he could voice the need for water, he heard the bright trickle of liquid being poured. Moments later, Martha was at his bedside, bidding him to sit up.
His arms felt like they were threaded with string instead of bone, but using what feeble strength he had, with Martha’s aid, he managed to push himself almost upright before flopping back against the pillows, panting and utterly spent.
“Comfy?” Martha asked at last.
Grunting in reply, he forced his eyelids to open, and immediately he wished he had not, for brilliant sunlight streamed through the window, almost blinding him.
“Bollocks!” he cursed, wincing and shielding his eyes with one floppy forearm.
“Sorry, sorry.” Martha hurried to the window and dragged the heavy drapes to block out the worst of the sun’s glare. “How’s that? Any better?”
In reply, he cast her a steely glare. If only the simple act of drawing a curtain could block out all the pain of the past. Then again, without the pain, there could be none of the pleasure either.
He raised the tankard to his lips and gulped down the cool, sweet water. As he did so, Martha aimlessly roamed the bedchamber, first straightening the drapes, then pausing to rearrange the position of a candlestick, now smoothing her hand over the creases of his bed-covers, but all the while she kept glancing at him, almost as if she had something to say but dared not say it.
He sighed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. There was obviously something weighing on her mind. “Out with it, then.”
Without speaking, she took the empty tankard from his hand, placing it with undue care on the small table beside his bed. Then she began smoothing more nonexistent creases from the burgundy coverlet.
“Oh, for pity’s sake, woman,” he growled. “You of all people need not tiptoe about my death bed. Just ask and be done.”
Anger flashed from the depths of her eyes. Ah, this was a vast improvement. Here was the Martha he knew so well. Her own, usually fiery, disposition suited her far more than the sweet gentle facade of a nurse. “Okay, fine,” she snapped. “I will: did you do it?”
He chuckled at her directness. “More than likely, I expect. It seems I am responsible for most of world’s ills of late.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then do me the courtesy of speaking plainer, for a dying man has neither the time nor inclination for guessing games.”
“But you’re not dying,” she said, resuming her perch at the end of the bed. “Well, not now, anyway.”
Disappointing as this was, the news was not entirely unexpected. Although he was still weak as a newborn lamb, he felt life returning to his feeble limbs. Unfortunately. Why had they bothered to bring him back at all? With the exception of Martha, perhaps, no one in Edgeway really liked him. No one would miss him or mourn him if he were gone. They probably wanted to ensure he was in good health for his public execution. Yes. That would be it.
“Okay, then. I’ll just say it.” Suddenly she would not meet his eyes and began picking at her skirt, removing invisible pieces of lint. “Did you... er... sleep with her?”
For a few moments, he was unable to speak, shocked into silence. “Of whom d-do you speak?”
“Isobel, of course.”
Erde! Had Martha the ability to read his dreams? How else could she have divined his most precious, innermost thoughts?
“You talk in your sleep,” she explained, reading him accurately once again.
“I most certainly do not!”
“Oh?” She arched her eyebrows, apparently amused by the heat of his denial. “So how else do you explain it?”
“Vadim must have mentioned her to you.”
“The King of the Secret Squirrels?” She gave a quick snort of laughter. “I don’t think so, do you?”
She had a point there—though Anselm could not imagine why she would dub her beloved husband as the supreme ruler of the tree rodents. By nature, Vadim had always been the most discreet of men, not prone to the gossip and rumor mongering so favored by others. No. Not he. Despite the years of separation, from what Anselm had seen thus far, his foster brother’s character seemed remarkably unchanged. Which meant Martha must be telling the truth.
“Well?” She was still waiting for an answer.
If only it were that simple. Anselm closed his eyes to avoid the questions that lurked behind her intelligent eyes.
“Fine. Suit yourself.” The bed shifted as she got up, heading for the door. “I’ll go and see what’s keeping your lunch. I think Agatha’s making a nice chicken broth today—”
“Yes.” Before he could stop it, the word flew from his lips.
“Yes, what? To the chicken broth or—”
What the hell was wrong with him? He opened his eyes, and as if possessed by the spirit of another, he continued to speak. “I did sleep with Isobel, though we made love for hours before finally surrendering ourselves to slumber’s sweet lure.” For the love of the Great Spirit, be silent!
Martha slowly turned, her hand still poised on the door latch. Though she did not ask anything more, he experienced an uncontrollable urge to answer all of her unspoken questions.
He exhaled a long breath. “My beloved Isobel. I loved her well and fell too deeply, and then… she left me.” He glared at Martha as though she were somehow to blame. “My! You are brutal. Are you satisfied now that you have beaten the truth from a sick man?”
Martha leaned against the door, her eyes soft with sympathy, but still she did not speak. Unfortunately, Anselm’s mouth refused to follow her example. Much to his disgust, he found he wanted to unburden himself, to speak the truth and rid his heart of its long-kept secret. “What else did I unwittingly reveal to you?”
She shrugged. “Not much, really. Just the bits and bobs I picked up while you were rambling with fever. Oh, and today, of course.”
“Hmm?”
“You get quite chatty when you’re drugged up to the eyeballs.”
His cheeks flamed with embarrassment. “I see.” Then that was that. No matter how much he longed to, he would never again partake of any more of Agatha’s soporific infusions. Well, not with an audience, at least. “And apart from yourself, has anyone else mentioned... spoken of my... my...?” Oh, this was too humiliating. How should he proceed? He felt exposed. Naked. Violated. What if Vadim knew? Or even worse, Agatha and that lapdog of a fellow who followed her everywhere she went?
Damn! Even now, the servants might be down in the kitchens, gossiping about Sir Anselm and his lost lady love.
“Has anyone else picked up on it, you mean?” Martha shook her head. “No. At least, I don’t think so. You’re usually much more settled at night. You know, while Seth sits with you—”
“What? My father has been keeping watch over me?” He could scarcely believe what he was hearing.
“Every single night.”
“But... but...” This was too incredible. “I-I thought it was Agatha, or that bald-headed fellow.”
“Only in the beginning, and you were pretty out of it back then.” She moved away from the door and came toward the bed, frowning as she recalled a time he had no memory of. “You didn’t do much of anythin
g, only lay there, sweating and dying. Or so we thought.”
He shuffled higher up his pillows, hissing slightly as the movement jarred his wound. “So what happened? Why am I still here, still breathing in and out?”
Martha smiled and settled herself on the chair beside his bed. “Ah. That’d be down to Ma.”
Not Grandmother too? Anselm rubbed his hands over his face, momentarily startled to feel soft bristles beneath his palms. He was sporting a full beard? Just how long had he been gone? “What did she do to me?”
“She brought a metal hook with her, about this long.” Using her hands as a visual aid, Martha illustrated the size of the old woman’s mystery instrument. “Apparently the runes told her there was something festering in your wound.” She frowned. “Do you remember how you came to be injured?”
“Yes.” Brief snatches of memory. The roof of the barbican. Torrential rain. Martha was there, and Lord Godric too... stabbing him. Anselm shivered, not wanting to recall any more. Not yet. “And were they right, the spirits? Was there anything left inside me?”
“Yes, a tiny piece of a shirt. After Ma fished it out, the abscess burst, and that was it, really.”
He placed one hand upon his bandaged side. “That all sounds fairly gruesome.”
“Oh, it was!” Eyes twinkling, Martha shuffled her chair nearer to the bed, such was her eagerness to relay the gory truth. “They wouldn’t let me help because of this little fella”—she patted the curve of her stomach, indicating her unborn child—“but I could hear you screaming from the other room. It took three of them to hold you down: Seth, Vadim, and Harold. Oh, and that smell! Talk about rank.”
He grimaced. Did she have to look quite so pleased about it? “I am heartily glad I missed it.”
Just then, there came a light knock at the door of his bedchamber. “That’ll be our lunch,” Martha said, springing to her feet. “Good. I’m starving.”
She opened the door to admit Effie, her maidservant, who was burdened by a particularly large tray.
“How does he fare today, m’lady?”
“As you see,” Martha replied with a sweep of her hand, indicating where Anselm sat up in bed. “Doesn’t he look well? I think he’s finally turned the corner.” She took the tray from Effie’s hands. “Will you tell the others?”
Effie nodded, but a flush stained her cheeks, and she seemed reluctant to look at the bed all of a sudden. “Perhaps I ought to stay,” she said, “just until Agatha arrives.”
“Whatever for? I can manage by myself.” Martha dumped the heavy tray on the bedside table with a tremendous clatter, releasing the delicious aromas of chicken and freshly baked bread into the air. Suddenly ravenous, Anselm heard his stomach grumble loudly.
“Th-That is n-not what I m-meant, m’lady.”
“I believe your maid has some concerns regarding your virtue, sweeting,” Anselm said in a conspiratorial whisper, quite loud enough for young Effie to hear. “And rightly so too.”
“Ugh!” Martha rolled her eyes at him. “You wish!” She turned to smile at Effie. “There’s really no need to worry. Improved though he is, Sir Anselm will be incapable of seducing anyone for quite some time.”
Anselm scowled. There she went again, looking pleased about his misfortune. Irritating wench.
“But if it makes you feel any better,” Martha continued, “you can sit outside in the main chamber until someone comes to relieve me of my troublesome patient.”
Seemingly pacified, Effie bobbed a quick curtsy. “Very well, m’lady. I shall get with that pile of darning.” And with that, she was gone, closing the door behind her.
Martha sighed. “No matter how many times I ask her, she refuses to call me by my name.”
“’Tis only right that she should, Lady Edgeway.”
“And I think I liked you better when you were dying,” she said, tying a napkin about his neck. “Here you go. Eat up.” She thrust a steaming bowl of chicken broth into his hands.
“Will you not feed me, sweeting?” He could not help himself, for he had always so enjoyed teasing her, but perhaps Martha had his measure now, for she did not rise to take the bait.
“Thankfully those days are over.” She sat back on her chair and began examining the other contents of the tray, peering beneath the linen covers. “Ooh! A melted cheese sandwich. Yum! That one’s definitely mine.”
For a while, they devoted their attention to eating. If Anselm was hungry, Martha seemed only slightly less so and wolfed down her meal as if she had fasted for a month.
“It’s not my fault,” she said on seeing his amused expression. “It’s the baby. He’s always hungry.”
A change of subject was most definitely in order. For some reason, he was not entirely comfortable with a discussion on Martha’s interesting state, not without the benefit of a chaperone. “So do you intend explaining to me why you sent your maid to sit in the outer chamber? Are my table manners that unpleasant?” he asked, handing back the half-eaten bowl of broth. Hungry as he had been, his stomach now felt as if he had just eaten at a banquet.
But for once Martha did not smile. “I just wanted to talk to you in private... about Isobel.”
“There is little more to tell,” he said, feigning brightness. “’Tis naught but the age-old story of boy meets girl, boy loses girl. Nothing more.” Not quite the truth, and Martha seemed to realize it.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Believe what you will, sweeting. It matters not. Isobel has gone, and so the story ends.”
“Only it hasn’t ended, has it? Not really. Not for you.”
Fear spiked his heart. After so many years, he was about to be discovered. “Leave this alone, m’lady. Pursuing the matter will benefit neither of us.”
“It might, if you let it.” Martha handed him a tankard. “Here. Maybe this’ll help loosen your tongue.”
“I like my tongue as it is, thank you kindly.” But he took the ale anyway and sipped at it, frowning into the depths of his cup. Perhaps crossing paths with death had altered him, for now he longed to let the whole truth spill forth, to relieve himself of the burden of carrying it, if only for a while. He studied Martha’s unusually serious countenance. Whatever fate had thrown this woman into his path, he felt somehow bound to her. He always had. Not in the way he loved Isobel, perhaps—nothing quite so romantic as that—although he had once believed that might be so.
But now he knew what it was. What he felt for Martha was something else, something that transcended the usual roles of a man and a woman. If he loved her at all, it was without passion, almost like the love he might feel for a child, or a sibling. Or perhaps a favorite hunting dog!
Had Martha been his sister in a previous incarnation? Whatever it was, whether he liked it or not, somehow she saw him. The real him. The man who kept to the shadows, not the carefree, often cruel Anselm he presented to the world.
Who was she—Martha? At that moment, she was his confessor. Was confession as good as it was reputed to be? There was but one way to find out.
“How much truth can you take, m’lady?”
“As much as you can serve, m’lord.” There it was, the smile that made her eyes twinkle so. The sight of it heartened him, lent him courage to revisit a time he had shunned for so many years.
“Then listen. But be warned, what I have to say will not make for easy listening.”
She nodded and settled back in her chair, nursing her tankard on her lap.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
As darkness fell, its presence was that of a kindly guardian, protecting and concealing them from the world. Safe within the tumbledown walls of Isobel’s hideaway, they made love for much of the night, but still the night was too brief.
Lost in her body, Anselm soared to heights he had not known existed, and Isobel was there with him, flying at his side, her fingers entwine
d with his. They dozed fitfully, only to wake minutes later, ravenously hungry, but not for food.
Sweet, lovely Isobel. So warm and welcoming. Feral, yet tender.
As sunrise tinted the horizon with its vivid shades of pink and orange, Isobel mounted him again. Although he missed the intimacy of darkness, Anselm welcomed the dawn. Now he could see her as well as feel her; her ripe breasts bouncing as she rode him, her thighs straddled over his hips.
He bit his lip and reined himself back, striving against the need to fill her again, for he wanted to see her as she climaxed this time.
Isobel. His naked goddess. Erde! But the lure of her hips was nigh on impossible to resist. He needed to somehow prolong this moment, or else he would tumble over the brink of bliss before she did, and that would never do. So, reaching down, he began touching her in the way she so enjoyed.
Isobel gasped and bucked above his fingers. “Oh!” Eyes closed, she threw back her head, her hips pushing him from a fast canter into a headlong gallop. And then, as night receded into day, he finally witnessed the rapture of love on her face—the way her glorious tangle of hair spilled over her breasts and tumbled backward in a sheet of shimmering gold that almost touched her waist. Perilously close to the edge now, Isobel groaned out his name.
And Anselm answered. Gripping onto her thighs, he thrust powerfully into her body, pulling her down to kiss her as ripples of pleasure washed over them.
Panting and giggling, finally spent, Isobel collapsed onto the flour sacks beside him and, snuggled close, with her arm draped about his waist. “That was... was...”
“Indeed it was.” Anselm planted a kiss on top of her tousled head. “I could not have put it any more eloquently myself.”
More giggles. “My! How your heart races.”
He stroked her head as it rested against his chest. “’Tis hardly surprising after the way you have used me all night.”
“Me?” Grinning, she raised her head to look at him. “That is not quite how I remember it, m’lord.”
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