Dark Warrior (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Julie Shelton

  She opened her eyes and covered a dainty yawn with the back of her hand. “You’re dressed already, my lord? Is it not still dark outside?”

  “Aye, sweetness. But we have much to do today. Come, let Mary dress you, then we will break our fast and go out together to begin our tour.”

  He backed off the bed and stood looking down at her, his heart aching with the love he felt for her. And the overpowering need he had to shield her from the firestorm he knew was coming. The Sheriff of London would most likely arrive today with warrants for both his and Kathryn’s arrest. It would be reckless folly to send him packing with his tail tucked between his legs, but that was precisely what he intended to do. He could only pray such a move would not prove to be fatal. And that tomorrow’s meeting with Earls Lindsley and Fairbourne and the Duke de Brienne would end with a plan that would rid the kingdom of Robert Walford once and for all. He closed his eyes. And, prithee, oh God, bring Thomas back from London quickly with good news from His Majesty.

  “Nicholas, what is it?” Kathryn asked in alarm, and he suddenly realized he was scowling.

  Forcing a smile, he lifted her hand to his lips. “’Tis naught, my love. I’ll be back anon. Hurry and dress so we can begin our day.”

  Quickly she went to the wash stand and brushed her teeth, scrubbing at them with her index finger wrapped in a linen cloth covered with a gritty paste made of crushed herbs and flowers. So much better than the green hazel twigs they had used at the convent. After rinsing her mouth, and splashing her face with cold water, she let Mary dress her in a blue woolen cote-hardie and a dark rusty-orange surcote, whose enormous armholes and shortened hem were trimmed with sable, and whose entire length was decorated down the narrow front with carved ivory buttons.

  Hooking a fingertip in the large side opening of the surcote, Kathryn pulled it out away from her body and looked first at it, then at Mary. “Did they run out of fabric?” she teased.

  “Nay, me lady.” The young maid twisted her hands nervously. “’Tis what all the fine ladies in court are wearing,” she said assuringly. “’Tis the latest fashion straight from France, brought over by Queen Philippa herself!”

  “Oh, well,” Kathryn said with more than a trace of sarcasm, which was completely lost on the simple Mary, “if the French say ’tis high fashion, then it must be so.” She sat on a cushioned stool while Mary plaited her golden hair in a single thick braid down her back. A gold filigree coronet was placed on her head.

  “Oh, me lady,” Mary said with a sigh. “Ye look so lovely.”

  “In truth?” Kathryn looked at her young maid, suddenly very much in need of reassurance. No one in her life, until Nicholas, had ever remarked on her appearance. To dwell upon one’s looks was vanity—a mortal sin, and one she’d had no intention of committing. One of the other women in the nunnery had been so concerned with her appearance, she had crimped her hair and even painted her cheeks and lips bright red. To Kathryn, she had looked grotesque, like a mummer in a pantomime.

  “Oh, aye, me lady. Would ye like to see?”

  “See?”

  “Oh, aye, me lady. In the glass.” As she was speaking, Mary walked over to one of two tall cupboards flanking the doorway leading into Ellen and William’s apartment. She opened a drawer and pulled out a small, flat object of polished silver set in an embossed silver frame. “’Twere Lady Blanche’s.” She crossed back over to the stool and handed the object to Kathryn. “She were a right beauty, she were. But not nearly as beautiful as ye, me lady,” she added loyally.

  Kathryn bit her lip. She had never seen herself before. She had no idea what she looked like. Would she be as grotesque as Sister Elizabeth, with her pasty white face? Would she be as bruised and disfigured as the women who, over the years, had arrived at the convent, often in the dead of night? Women who, more often than not, spent the rest of their lives in hermit-like seclusion, shunning contact with the rest of the nuns? She suddenly realized that she didn’t even know what color her eyes were. Intrigued, she raised the mirror.

  And let out a wail of pure anguish. For the first time she saw the horrific damage Robert Walford had done to her face and neck eight days ago.

  “Sweet, Merciful Mary!” Her hand flew to her mouth and her eyes filled with tears. Oh, my God! She started sobbing uncontrollably, unable to tear her gaze away from the horrendous sight of the vividly colored bruises still haunting her eyes, still circling her neck.

  Nicholas was whistling as he re-entered the chamber. But the instant he saw his beloved, the instant he heard her tormented sobs, he was by her side, his expression grim. Squatting next to her, he gently pried the mirror away from the death grip her fingers had on it. “Shhh. Shhh. Shhh.” He pulled her off the stool into his arms, handing the mirror to an equally distraught and tearful Mary, who was wailing almost as loudly as Kathryn.

  “Oh, Yer Grace, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t realize—I just wanted her to see how beautiful she looked.”

  “’Tis all right, Mary,” Nicholas said gently without looking at her. All his attention was focused on the sobbing woman he held in his arms. He rubbed her back, crooning to her in a futile effort to console her. She was inconsolable. “You did naught amiss, Mary. Please put the mirror away, then you may leave us. I will take care of Her Ladyship.”

  Kathryn was completely consumed by the huge, gulping sobs that wracked her body. She cried for everything she had never cried for before. The unwanted, unloved child that she had been. The four soul-crushing years she’d spent in the convent from Hell. The torture she had endured at the merciless hands of Robert Walford. She cried for a lifetime of pain and loneliness, bitterness and despair. She cried until there were no tears left. And still she cried, dry, heaving sobs that stole her breath and sapped her meager store of strength.

  And through it all, Nicholas held her, stroking her back, offering her without words what little comfort he could.

  “Why did you not tell me?” she railed at him when she could gasp in enough air to speak. She pounded one fist ineffectually against his shoulder before covering her face with her hands. “Why did you not tell me how bad it was? I’m a monster! How can you even bear to look at me?” Her body sagged against him and she cried some more. Until she finally succumbed to the exhaustion that always follows raging emotions.

  She heaved an enormous, shuddering sigh and slumped against Nicholas’s supporting body. Ragged sobs still trembled through her, gradually subsiding until she sat quiescent in his arms.

  His powerful thigh muscles were screaming for relief from squatting and supporting both of their weights for so long. Dropping to his bottom, he sat cross-legged on the floor, pulling her onto his lap. She threw her arms around his middle and rested her cheek against his chest.

  She started hiccupping. He continued to hold her, stroking her back, until the hiccups finally stopped and her breathing was smooth and even.

  “Now,” he said quietly. “I will try to answer your questions.” He nuzzled his cheek against the top of her head. “First, I didn’t tell you because I did not think it would benefit you in any way to know how badly bruised you were. And, judging from your reaction just now, I would have to say that, on the whole, I was right.”

  “Forgive me, my lord.” Her tiny voice was muffled by his shoulder.

  “Naught to forgive.” He smiled. “’Twas a completely predictable reaction. Second, you don’t look horrible. You look beautiful. You are, without a doubt, the most exquisitely beautiful woman I have ever met. Your bruises will fade, my love. Just give them some time. They are already so much better than they were when we found you in the forest. And, third, I can bear to look at you because I love you. Although, in the interests of being totally honest with you, I do feel something else besides love when I look at those bruises.”

  “Lust?” she asked slyly.

  He laughed. “Oh, aye. Plenty of that. But I was talking about rage.” His voice deepened, taking on an edge of steel. “A rage so po
werful that at times I fear it will consume me. A rage directed straight at Robert Walford. For using you so vilely. For leaving you so marked and so destroyed. And I will feel this rage until he is dead. Which, I can assure you, will be very soon.”

  She sniffled. “I cannot tour the castle with you this morning.” Her voice was even more hoarse than usual as a result of her crying jag. She tightened her arms around him. “I cannot allow people to see me like this.”

  He sighed, sending up a silent prayer for patience and understanding. “Everyone here knows at least some of what happened to you,” he said gently. “They all know how badly bruised you were—are. You need not worry about their reactions. Everyone here admires you, beloved. You fought back against a brutal man. You survived an ordeal that was tantamount to torture. An ordeal that very nearly killed you. They are all looking forward to meeting their new Duchess. If we don’t take the tour today, dozens of people will be very disappointed.”

  She lifted herself up so she could read the truth of his words written in his face. “Dozens?” she asked, mildly shocked. Blessed Virgin! Her father’s household numbered but a mere handful.

  “Dozens.” He was serious. “And not one of them would dare say aught to you except to welcome you warmly to your new home.”

  “Dozens?” she asked again.

  He chuckled.

  She smiled and heaved a shaky sigh. “Please forgive me, my lord,” she said. “I know not what came over me. I’ve never cried like that in my whole life. Mayhap I was just…catching up on a lot of things.”

  “’Tis I who begs forgiveness,” he said softly. “I was so busy preparing everyone else for your appearance, I neglected to prepare you. It simply never occurred to me that anyone would give you a mirror.”

  “I have green eyes,” she said on a note of wonder. “I never knew what color my own eyes were.”

  “You have beautiful green eyes,” he agreed huskily, unable to resist kissing her cheek. “The most beautiful green eyes I have ever seen.” He put his hands beneath her arms and pushed her to her feet. “Now, go splash some water on your face. Rolf will be here anon for breakfast. As soon as we’ve eaten, we’ll go and show you off to everyone.”

  From the beginning, breakfast seemed to be a contest between Rolf and Nicholas to see which one could make Kathryn laugh the loudest. Then it became a contest to see which could offer her the tastiest morsels of food from their trenchers. An hour later, as they were finishing their meal, Nicholas beckoned to a woman hovering in the doorway. As the woman approached, he turned to Kathryn. “My love, I want you to meet Sorcha Parsons.”

  The petite woman was only slightly taller than Kathryn and was dressed in a deep orange cote-hardie and brown wool surcote. Her head was covered with an immaculate white linen barbet, with its wide strap under her chin. Her hazel eyes sparkled with humor and intelligence. In spite of the voluminous surcote, her gently rounded belly was apparent. “I am pleased to meet you at last, my lady,” Sorcha said with a graceful curtsey.

  “Indeed, the pleasure is all mine, Lady Sorcha,” Kathryn assured her.

  “Sorcha has graciously consented to take on the task of making all the arrangements for our wedding day,” Nicholas informed her, taking a black wool, sable-lined mantle from Ellen’s plump hands and wrapping it around Kathryn, securing the gold clasp at her neck. “She and Rolf are going to accompany us on our tour.”

  “’Tis my honor to serve you, my lady,” Sorcha said, dropping into another curtsey. Both she and Rolf fell in behind Kathryn and Nicholas as they left the solar.

  “The original Keep dates back to 1149, and was built by my great, great, great grandfather,” Nicholas was saying as they entered the gloom of the torch-lit hallway, “although there have been many additions and improvements since then. For the most part, however, the great hall looks pretty much as it did two hundred years ago.”

  As they stepped through one of the side openings in the screens passage, Kathryn looked around, wide-eyed, unable to suppress a gasp.

  The twelfth-century Hall was an enormous rectangular room dominated in the center by a great, clay-lined fire pit whose crackling flames provided the main source of heat. Two massive stone fireplaces on the east and west walls also gave off additional heat, as well as light. Kindling and chopped logs were piled high around the pit and along the walls, in every available space.

  Above the elaborately carved and niched screens passage, through which they had just passed, was a minstrel’s gallery. Above that hung a green-and-gold banner bearing the Berwick crest, a heron d’Or on a quartered vert field with the words, Avant La Vaillance, L’Honneur. The ceiling, a good thirty feet above the floor, was an elaborate latticework of arched oaken ribs, bossed and buttressed at five-foot intervals. High, narrow windows, framed with multiple arches and carved stone columns, ranged along the tops of the three outside walls. Their colorful, leaded glass panes admitted an astonishing amount of light.

  Along the lower walls, wrought iron brackets held torches for illuminating the night. Between the torches and the windows, covering nearly every inch of available space was a vast array of shields, lances, swords, and other weapons, arranged in intricate patterns. There was also a stag’s head mounted on a wooden plaque above the exterior door.

  “I had no idea, my lord, that Berwick was so grand a place,” Kathryn whispered, a note of awe in her voice.

  “’Tis just home,” Nicholas shrugged. “And now, ’tis your home.”

  “I hope I prove worthy of it.” She was feeling considerably less than worthy at that moment. Compared with this place, Carrolton Castle, her own family home, was a crumbling ruin.

  “Do not let it overwhelm you, beloved,” he whispered gently in her ear. “You are more than up to the task of being its new chatelaine.”

  At least forty-five people were lined up along the side walls, facing each other across the vast expanse of the rush-covered floor. They were the household servants, grooms, pages, and fosters, eager to greet their new mistress. All of them wore the green-and-gold parti-colored livery of the House of Berwick, ornamented with the family’s heron badge.

  As Nicholas handed Kathryn down from the dais holding the high table and the richly carved oak screen behind it, everyone in the room went down on one knee and bowed their heads, the men also removing their caps and hoods.

  Nicholas led Kathryn along each row of people, introducing her to everyone as their new Duchess and inviting them all to celebrate the joyous occasion of their wedding three days hence.

  Walking gracefully, head held high, a gracious smile firmly in place, Kathryn held out her hand to each and every person, repeating their names after Nicholas. She was welcomed with bows, curtseys, smiles, hugs and kisses on her hands and cheeks, along with expressions of sympathy and concern over her bruised face, still-bandaged wrists, and splinted little finger. It was clear how much Nicholas was loved by everyone who depended on him for their living. It was also clear that everyone was fully prepared to love her equally as well, and the realization warmed her heart.

  Together, they exited the donjon, followed by Sorcha and Rolf, both having donned heavy cloaks against the bitter weather outside. As they prepared to step out into the cold to traverse the open space between the Keep and the kitchen next door, Nicholas turned to pull the hood of Kathryn’s mantle up over her head. When she placed her gloved hand on his forearm, he looked down inquiringly and, seeing the uncertainty on her upturned face, he bent his head and kissed her.

  What started out as a warm, reassuring kiss quickly flared into a ravenous exchange of mutual need and hunger, involving lips, tongues, and teeth. It was a plundering kiss that sent molten fire flowing through her body, igniting a firestorm of voracious need. They broke off, breathing heavily, their breath frosting in the bitter-cold air, suddenly remembering where they were and that they were not alone.

  Something dark and feral prowled in Nicholas’s eyes as his scorching gaze devoured her features. His eyes wer
e disturbingly black, blacker than she had ever seen them. And they pulled at her like the receding tide pulls at an unwary swimmer, until she felt herself sinking into their turbulent depths

  Breathless, her tongue came out to lick her lips, knowing that he could see the clamoring need in her eyes. She couldn’t make herself look away. “Nicholas—”

  “Aye, beloved. I want it, too.” He leaned down to place his forehead against hers. “Soon,” he promised, looking deeply into her eyes. His voice was a low growl. “Just three more days.”

  “Aye,” she acknowledged, gulping, struggling to steady her breathing. She didn’t think she could wait three more days. She didn’t need time to eradicate the memory of Robert Walford’s brutal attack, she needed Nicholas’s touch, his whispered words, his cock inside her, building pleasure and establishing new memories.

  Straightening, he placed his hand at the small of her back and turned her toward the separate building that housed the kitchen. As she looked up, she caught Rolf’s gaze and felt a sudden jolt of heat through her system. Pressing her lips together, she looked hastily away from the sensual Dane, aching with guilt at the direction her thoughts were taking. Blessed Virgin! This must stop! My heart belongs to Nicholas, the man I will marry in three days’ time. There is room for no other. And yet…

  A blush flooded her cheeks with color that owed naught to the raw, bitter, February wind, and everything to do with this virile, sensual Dane.

  Chapter Five

  The kitchen was even larger than the great hall and was filled with a cacophony of noise and activity that bordered on utter chaos. There were five enormous fireplaces, two along the back wall, one along each side wall, and a double one in the center of the room. All were large enough to roast entire oxen.

  Shelves along the walls were stacked floor to ceiling with a dizzying array of bowls, trenchers, bronze and copper pitchers, copper pans, pewter platters, and basins of every shape and size. Hooks on the walls held long-handled spoons, skimmers, pokers, scoops, skewers, and an impressive collection of knives.