by Nicole Locke
‘My mother saw the fire before it consumed the house.’
He made some vital sound and she stopped. Waited, but he stayed in silence, and so did she.
The only sound between them was the horse’s hooves beneath them. Its occasional snort as it pulled on the reins to catch up with the others. The men’s voices wafted around them, but they were far ahead, and she couldn’t follow their words. She and Rhain were alone as much as they’d ever been.
‘It’s enough,’ he said after a while. ‘What you said before. I don’t need to hear any more.’
‘I know.’
‘Do you...need to tell me?’
‘I’ve told no one this before. The villagers and the innkeepers knew the facts.’
‘But travelers, did they never enquire?’
He was curious, he was asking questions. She was glad for them. ‘When I was a child they asked many times,’ she said. ‘I never stayed around to listen.’
‘You wish to tell me otherwise?’
He’d wanted her to stay at Tickhill to protect her. He’d almost kissed her. He had been familiar to her from the beginning, but now it was more. Maybe that something more was what prompted her to say, ‘Very much.’
He did something startling then, he combined the reins in one hand and took one of hers and held it. She hadn’t realized she’d been trembling until he secured her own disfigured hand in his. She didn’t realize she needed that touch until that moment.
Her eyes focused on her hand in his, she said, ‘The fire didn’t look like much from a distance. If my father and sister were resting, then there was still a chance to get them. When they weren’t outside, we ran into the house. There we had to force our way in because the fire was worse inside.
‘My sister was in the main room, mere feet away from the door. My father was nowhere in sight. My mother shouted for me to take my sister out while she went to the back to get my father. I...’ she breathed a shaky breath ‘...never saw my mother again. I grabbed my sister’s hand. Her eyes were big, scared. So relieved to see me. There was a lot of billowing smoke. It burned to breathe; to see. I tripped on something, I don’t know what. I didn’t let go of my sister’s hand and she fell with me. We were scrambling up when part of the ceiling caved in. It pinned us down.
‘I was able to break free, but she was stuck. I knew my mother and father were already dead. The bedroom where my mother fled to was a wall of flames. I was holding my sister’s hand when the smoke overtook me.’
She couldn’t tell him the rest. Not when tears ran down her face and Rhain engulfed both her hands in his.
* * *
Rhain struggled to breath. The weight of her words, the weight of her pain was crushing him. How had she picked herself up afterward; how could she bake cakes? He knew before he asked the question, yet still he asked, ‘Why me, why now?’
She took a shaky breath. ‘Tickhill is wonderful, but it is too efficient. I couldn’t get lost there. I couldn’t find my way. I don’t know if you understand, but I need to be... I don’t know how to explain it.’
He did understand, pain, loneliness, an orphan. Tickhill was a king’s property. Rich, well supplied and prepared. Incompetence and inefficiency wouldn’t be accepted, and it had been running that way for years.
Whereas for the innkeepers, she learned to face the fires, to bake and cook. When they fell ill, she fed and cared for them. They truly needed her and she needed them just as much.
There was another part of her tale he understood as well. How her scars were outside and his were in. But scars were scars as were needs.
And he had them now. Every bit of her tale demanded he protect her, revere her. The halo of blond around her face, the delicate lines of her neck, the wave of her hand. The way she felt in his arms as they rode on and on... All of that was something else indeed. Desire. Lust. Need. All for her.
This brave, beautiful woman he found at this time of his life and he couldn’t give her an answer of why he understood her. For to answer her would be making some acknowledgment of her importance. She couldn’t be important to him.
‘It’ll take us days to reach York.’ His voice sounded hollow over the roaring in his ears. ‘You may live to regret it.’
He already did. More days in her company when his desire for her was undeniable.
More chances for Reynold to discover her, use her...kill her. So strong, brave, more than he could ever guess, but she stood no chance against Reynold’s sword or wrath.
‘I know you wished to protect me from this man after you, but I couldn’t stay at Tickhill.’
How could she still not understand the full truth of why he wanted her to remain at the castle? ‘I didn’t make arrangements for you to stay at Tickhill only to protect you from my enemy. I did it to protect you from me.’
Chapter Thirteen
‘Should we send out two more?’ Nicholas asked. Though he knew Nicholas was circumspect, Rhain looked around from where they sat. They’d stopped the horses to rest and stretch, and most of the men were throwing daggers at targets. Helissent had left for the woods and would soon return.
‘We send any more men, they’ll be noticed. York is merely days away. We’ll meet halfway before we run into any trouble.’
‘You think there will be trouble?’
Rhain took out his mother’s necklace and let the silver strands slide from one hand down to the other. Back and forth until in the afternoon light it looked like water.
‘Reynold shouldn’t know we’re anywhere near this part of England, but York is large and there are many places to hide if he lies in wait for me.’
‘But not for me?’ Nicholas said blithely. ‘The way you cut me out of the discussion, I could get my feelings hurt.’
‘Who cares for your feelings when it’ll save your head?’ Because he could, Rhain gazed pointedly downward until Nicholas and he laughed.
And it felt good.
‘We haven’t talked like this since...’ Nicholas stopped, shook his head.
Rhain’s laughter left him. ‘Are you going to mention her again?’
‘No, it changes your mood of late. You’re growing surly on me.’
Surly was a mild word for the raging of emotions clashing inside him. He’d begun training again if only to release some of the tension. It didn’t help when Helissent watched.
‘Perhaps some of that mead will help. Do we have any of it left?’
‘From Tickhill?’ Rhain lifted a shoulder. ‘I doubt we’ve drunk it all in the half a day since we left.’
‘I don’t trust the men from Flanders. They keep leaving to hunt food. Who knows what they’re pilfering?’
‘We’re eating their food, and you think they have time to steal?’
‘Then we could have a celebration of sorts.’
‘A celebration when there’s a madman after us and you and I will soon be dead?’
‘Yes, precisely for that reason. Danger’s always a good reason to drink.’ Nicholas exhaled roughly. ‘I could use some mead now.’
Rhain recognized that tone. ‘You are talking of her.’
‘You did take her again.’
He owed Nicholas an explanation though he didn’t know what the explanation would be. ‘You were there this morning—you think I had a choice?’
‘There is always a choice. You thought to leave her at Tickhill, and then you didn’t.’
‘How do I not know that Reynold is riding mere days behind us? I couldn’t leave her undefended.’
‘You used that argument when you sent riders ahead of us to watch for Reynold. Come, you used to be more quick of tongue and mind. Surely you can conjure a stronger argument than that.’
Rhain stilled his hands. ‘We’re not working with a logical man, why should my move
s be logical?’
‘Well, at least you admit to being illogical.’ Nicholas paused as they watched Helissent emerge from the woods only to bend down around the trees.
At this angle, Rhain could see none of her scars, only the beauty she was born with and she had copious amounts. From her tall slender form to the delicate upturn of her nose and the stubborn tilt of her chin. Now that he knew her story, he knew her true beauty was revealed by her scarred side. Her true worth was somewhere in the very heart of her.
He’d wanted to taste her lips, to steal a kiss. He’d made his want all the worse when he agreed to listen to her story.
Nicholas’s eyes tracked Helissent’s progress with the herbs. ‘Though I still can’t perceive why you’ve refused the other women, at least with her, I appreciate why you won’t let her go.’
Was he so transparent? His interest in her kept increasing, from that moment he opened the inn’s door and tasted her cakes. Then that last night in the village. While rage still seethed through his veins from Rudd, desire coursed through his very marrow as he tended her injuries and watched her eyes darken in candlelight.
Fascination. Desire. More than he’d felt in years, more than he’d felt ever. Still, because of Reynold, because of who he was, he should have walked away.
Except now she’d told him how she rushed into her flaming home to rescue her sister. It only took a few words for his resolve to weaken. His fascination and desire turning to need. He struggled not to find excuses to be alone with her. He failed every attempt to not track her with his eyes.
‘I’ll let her go, just as I have the others.’ Though to let her go now would be equivalent to him stopping his own breath.
The irony was not lost on him. He was a dead man anyway. At least by letting her go, she might live.
Nicholas’s watchful gaze was both warning and triumphant. ‘So sure of that?’
Rhain clenched the necklace in his hands. He’d handled it more now than he ever had in five years and knew he did it to remind himself.
He might need Helissent now, but he was not worthy of her. His very blood would taint her. ‘York will be her new home, but it won’t be ours.’
* * *
It was only the end of the first day away from Tickhill, and the air was laden with Rhain’s remarks, his studying amber gaze and his shadows.
Carlos was still attentive, but more reserved. His eyes darted to Rhain every time she asked about the burn on his arm. Which made her contemplate more on the words they exchanged that day in the garden.
It had sounded like a warning, something territorial. It felt territorial to her now once she combined his remarks with Carlos’s politeness and Nicholas’s secretive behavior.
Nicholas who equally smirked and watched her as carefully as she had her cakes when she first began baking.
But all of it, even as busy as she was gathering kindling, cooking, through it all, she watched Rhain.
Alone outside Tickhill, he didn’t bother with the hood. She should be getting used to the graceful litheness of his body, the angle of his jaw, the warm hue of his skin, but it wasn’t possible. It was like getting used to a combination of ingredients that should have been ordinary: a nose, lips and shoulders. But somehow with him, combined, he was something sublime. Like when he walked or simply ate, or when he touched the hilt of his dagger at his waist.
The grace and competence of it fascinated her. It wasn’t a nervous gesture, nor one that seemed to reassure him, but something born of habit, a part of him.
He was acutely effective at it and it compelled her to watch.
How he separated his fingers so that each one felt the length of the three leather-ribbed strips circling the hilt.
Then his hand would still and his forefinger would arc to the hilt and caress the well-worn metal pommel. Around, around, around.
Always three times as if to inspect the rounded hilt and sides. All the while the rest of his hand would stroke upwards and his fingers would meet again. Before he’d finish, he’d cup his hand along the top and rub like a ritual.
Sometimes that same hand would do nothing at all, just rest on the edge of a chair arm. Most days he’d simply use it to tear his bread or throw his cloak over his shoulder.
His ritual was never over for her. Hours afterward the caress thrummed and vibrated through her. At night she only needed to remember and a wave of heat would arc through her.
She knew she’d never feel such a caress from him. Though something was different when it came to him. There was enough silence in the day for her to wonder about it. Perhaps it was how he and the other mercenaries treated her.
For the first time in her life, and on several occasions now, she’d forgotten she was scarred and full of shame. It was a revelation to her, but it didn’t change the facts. She did have scars, she did carry shame.
And she didn’t deserve to forget no matter how much she was beginning wonder, or long for caresses. As soon as they reached York and other people cringed from her, she’d be brutally reminded of who, and what, she was.
Chapter Fourteen
She heard the tromping of heavy feet and knew her time laying in the sun was over. Though he’d never had heavy feet since the moment she met him, she knew Rhain was beyond the tree line and the shrubbery that bordered the small stream where she had just swum.
It was early morning, all of the men except Nicholas, had gone hunting. It seemed like an opportune time to take advantage of the small stream nearby and wash away the campfire’s ash.
She had divested herself of her gown, hose and shoes close to the camp, intending only to remain nearby, but the coolness of the water stung her skin and she swam further downstream until it eased.
Rhain should have been nowhere near here and she scrambled to stand in her dripping wet chemise to address him.
‘I noticed you didn’t bring a towel,’ he called out beyond the low shrubbery, ‘and thought you could use one.’
She watched his strong arm vault a large piece of cloth over the bush.
‘You came all this way to give me a towel?’
‘Along with your clothing and a new chemise.’ Those he laid out on the shrubbery, but she still couldn’t see him.
‘I thought you were hunting.’
‘Nicholas found me and told me what you’d done.’
‘So he thought I should have an escort?’
‘It’s dangerous. You know this, though you swam away versus staying around the camp where Nicholas could hear you.’
‘Wouldn’t it have been simpler to stop me himself?’
‘He knew better than to stop you himself.’
That comment was cryptic, but warmed her none the less. Was this because he wanted no one to see her in her chemise?
‘What do you expect me to do with the clothing?’
‘Change. Walk back with me.’
And be naked in front of him with her scars. She couldn’t see him, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t see her. ‘Do I have a choice?’
‘I wasn’t planning on giving you any.’
She didn’t think so, but she could be quick. When she snatched the towel and clothing, she didn’t see him in sight.
Not until she had stripped off her wet chemise and grabbed the towel.
Then she heard his voice very close indeed. When she looked up, he was there, a pot of ointment in his hand.
‘I almost forget to give you this...’ he said, his voice trailing.
She stood stunned. It wasn’t because he suddenly stood in front of her. It was his expression. It was his locked stillness, as if something she did, stunned him.
Then he breathed raggedly, his eyes dipped and roved, and fixated on her. His hands clenched around the pot like such a tiny thing could provide support. Tryin
g to smile, she offered her hand to accept it.
‘I do need the salve. Thank you for remembering.’
It would help her skin which was beginning to sting again now that the coldness of the water wasn’t there to alleviate it.
But as he stood there and continued to caress and clutch the pot, she realized her skin wasn’t stinging. It felt like it was tightening. Becoming all too aware of the warmth of the sun against her shoulders, the cool wind that brushed across the tips of her breasts.
In other parts of her body, she felt heavier, her belly, her legs languid. Gooseflesh prickled along her arms and the back of her neck.
She watched changes to Rhain as he stood there, the unevenness of his breaths, the mottled flush to his cheeks, the slight parting of his lips.
Rhain’s amber eyes returned to hers, but they were darker now. As if they were in the deepest part of the ovens where it should be bright with fire, but instead was black with heat.
She felt as though she was in the deepest part of the ovens...and he had put her there.
She lowered her outstretched hand and he avidly watched that movement, as if something fascinated him.
‘You were changing,’ he said, his voice tight.
‘You said to; you brought me clothes, which is kind because the water was cold and I don’t think my other chemise would dry.’
‘Cold,’ he repeated, rubbing his hand across his mouth, holding out the salve and dropping it when she tentatively offered again to take it.
He took a step abruptly back.
She bent to apply the salve to her, then froze. She remembered she was naked. Before Rhain. Exposing him to all her scars, the very worst of them.
Her hand still clutched the towel and she wound it abruptly around her. ‘You came around the shrubbery!’
He blinked, released his eyes from where she clenched the towel. ‘Only to hand you the salve. I—’
