by Emily Ward
“Can they see the light from here?”
“We’re in the dungeon. It’s just through that wall, I believe. Where we keep prisoners.”
“No door?”
“Sadly no, we don’t want an entrance to here from the dungeon in case the prisoners escape.”
“I suppose that would make it too easy for them.”
“It would. Now don’t worry so much. I’m sure that we’ll have company soon enough. Reginald maybe. Or perhaps your maid.”
She nodded mutely, sitting on the floor against the cold stone of the wall. He couldn’t help but notice that she looked upset. Worried. He was worried too. There wasn’t much that he could do to fix that, only distract her.
But the distraction was proving harder than he meant it to be. He let them fall into an uncomfortable silence, the words that could have been said echoing in the underground room.
There was nothing between them, but it didn’t stop the heavy air from stopping him. He wanted to comfort her but didn’t know how to do it.
Chapter Four
She sat in that dungeon, worry coursing through her. There was so much to say, but no way to say it all. There was no way that he would understand the truth.
She shook her head, forcing the thoughts out of her head. This wasn’t her fault. None of this was her fault. It couldn’t be her fault. If it was her fault, she would never be able to forgive herself.
She shook her head. Forcing the blame out of her head. She hated the thought of Liam holding her accountable for his father’s death. And the fact that her fiancé hadn’t arrived yet. She wondered where Reginald is.
He was watching her sit there and worry about what she was feeling. He shouldn’t be so worried about her. After all that he had been through. The loss of his father. His missing brother. All of these things. And he still looked like he was worried about her.
She considered talking to him.
But that would be too much. She didn’t know what to say. There were enough of her own problems wandering around her life to even start trying to support him with the new ones that had come into his life.
She was still thinking when he spoke, resting a hand on her knee. It was a comforting gesture. One that she didn’t believe she deserved. “Don’t worry so much.”
“I’m not worried.” That was a lie.
He let her lie, but she knew that he knew that she was lying. At least that was something to be grateful for. He came to sit next to her, offering her his shoulder. “It’s going to be fine.”
“It’s been hours.” She didn’t take the invitation, ignoring the comfort that he was trying to offer.
“I’m sure they’re still looking for the assassin.”
“Should we go check?”
He shook his head. “Stay here. Safe. Right now, you need to stay safe. And I’m the only one here to keep you safe.”
“This can’t be all about me.”
“You’re my brother’s fiancé, I have a duty to make sure that you are well taken care of.”
“You can’t possibly be that hung up on duty.” She shook her head. “You’ve never cared for those things. The trappings of duty.”
“Are you going to lecture me about what I believe in?”
“I shouldn’t have to.” She snapped back at him, upset about being told she was lecturing.
“You don’t have to. There are some duties that should be acknowledged and followed.”
“And this is one of them?”
“Yes.” He nodded.
“Why?”
“Because you are a guest and a friend. And I have a sword and you don’t.”
“Why don’t you leave your sword here with me.”
“I can’t risk leaving you here alone.”
She needed a different plan of attack. “You want to check too, don’t you?”
He repeated the mantra that he had already established. “I can’t leave you here alone.”
“You’ve already said that.”
“I shouldn’t have to say it more than once.”
“That’s not what I asked. You’re not answering my question.” She scolded him softly. “You want to go and find out what’s going on up there. I know you do. You hate sitting around and being safe.”
“I’m not a child anymore, Clara.”
“I know that neither am I. And I know when you’re avoiding a question that you don’t want to answer.”
“I want to go, is that acceptable to you? I want to go, but it would be foolish to even attempt to do it.” He shook his head, the frustration growing in his voice.
“Why?”
“Because I can’t leave you here alone.” He shook his head. “I’m not going to do that to you. I can’t do that to you. There is nothing in the world that would make me do that to you.”
“We can go together.” She wanted to go to see what was happening. She felt like she had to know.
Waiting was pure torture.
He reached up, softly touching her cheek. “I would never put you in danger, Clara. I want to go and see what’s going on, but I can’t do that to you.”
She felt her heart thud in her chest and she leaned in. She wanted to be closer to him, but she was afraid of getting to close. Of getting lost in the masculine scent that he wore. In those deep eyes that seemed to be thinking great thoughts behind the sarcastic smirk that he wore on an everyday basis.
Those eyes hadn’t changed from the time when they were younger, pondering on who they would marry when they got older. When he had told her that he would ask for her hand.
When she had said that she loved him.
Back before they both had learned about the way the world actually worked. It was a sad truth that had separated them. Something that they had no desire to speak of. Something that he never learned the truth about. And she hoped that he never would.
They were such fools back then. They hadn’t known that everything would change. That there would end up with no way to be together. That those promises that they had made were the dreams of children that they had sent into the wind never to return.
But a part of her still dreamed about that.
He must have dreamed about it too because his eyes widened. Then he moved in like a gust of wind, placing his lips on hers. The heat was undeniable.
He needed her. She could feel it from the pressure, from the heat, from the power that fed that kiss. Like two souls that had finally found each other after a thousand years of searching.
He was a much better kisser than he had been at the tender age of thirteen.
The kiss was strong and passionate, uncontrollably strong and needy. The kiss that stopped the world from turning as her hands wrapped around him. She pulled him closer, passion flowing between them. “We shouldn’t be doing this.” She groaned into the kiss.
“Just tell me to stop.” He whispered the words into the kiss and it made her melt a little inside. There was a gruffness to his voice, a need that seemed to strike a chord deep in her soul.
She couldn’t make herself say the words, to tell him to stop. There was a part of her that wanted this and so much more from him. Even if she knew that it was wrong. That she was promised to another man. To his older brother. She knew that she had dreamed of being close to him again. As children they had been friends, as teenagers they had shared their first kiss, hiding under a hedge in the gardens of her family estate. “I can’t.”
“I don’t want to stop. I missed you.”
Her hands clung to the thin fabric over his chest. “I missed you too.”
“Don’t make me have to live without you again.” He must not have realized that he had mumbled those words.
But she heard it. The sounds under his breath, like a thought, breathed to life. Something private that she wasn’t supposed to hear. She didn’t answer. It was better that way.
They both already knew how this was actually supposed to end. That they couldn’t actually be together.
His hands
started to tug at her dress, working to get it off. It wasn’t much in the way, a simple nightshift of muslin that barely covered her. “If I had known it was you, I would have volunteered for this duty.”
She moaned softly as he touched her, running his hands under the hem of her gown. “To marry me?”
“Of course. I promised you.” He toyed with the hem of her nightgown, running the fabric between his fingers. “I would have married you.”
She didn’t hesitate, deepening the kiss before pulling away and whispering quietly against his lips. “We would never have worked.”
He grunted softly as he reached up to her bare thigh, resting his forehead against hers. “Your body seems to think differently.”
“Attraction and love are two different things, Liam.” Still, she shifted to straddle his lap, tugging at his shirt. Even saying the words, she knew that she wouldn’t dread a marriage to Liam as much as she dreaded going to bed with his rather dull brother.
“It is, but I think they’re not mutually exclusive. Is it too late to change brothers?” He sounded like he was half-joking, but she could almost feel the need behind those words. Or maybe that was just the straining of his manhood at his pants as it pressed up against her.
“Are you really willing to make that offer?” She leaned in, kissing him again. It was like her lust made her body run automatically, without her control. But she didn’t fight those urges either.
“I am.”
“We were children when you made that promise.”
“It doesn’t make it less true.” He shook his head, leaning in to plant soft kisses along her jawline.
She shivered with delight. “Are you just letting nostalgia cloud your vision?”
“No.” It was one word. And that one word was sure of itself. It couldn’t be denied.
It made her drip with wanton desire. And she didn’t care at all. She wanted more and more of his touch. To feel him. To need him. “I know your reputation, Liam.”
“That doesn’t matter at all.”
She could feel the heat coming off of him through the thin fabric of the shirt he wore. “Maybe it does.”
“What if all that matters is you?” He said it like a man that knew exactly what he wanted.
There was a not insignificant part of her wanted to go further. To find out how far he was willing to chase this dream. To push this all the way to the natural conclusion, but she knew that she was promised to another. That it would be a betrayal, even if Liam was the one that she wanted. She had come here on a mission. To marry his brother. And this would do no good at all. This dream that would never exist in reality.
She pulled away as the door slid open at the top of the stairs. They could hear it.
They had just enough time to get themselves put back together before the guard came into view.
“What happened?” Liam stood up.
The older guard shook his head. “The assassin got away. We never saw them. I’m afraid there may be someone after you as well. We have completely secured the grounds.”
“What about Reginald?”
The man looked a little bothered by that question, but it was his duty to report the truth. “He was found dead. Just like your father.”
“This can’t be real.”
“We’re lucky we got to you two in time. I don’t know who would murder them in their beds, but it must have been some terrible villain.”
Liam dropped to his knees. Clara could see the pain on his face. He had been known to quibble with his family, but he loved them dearly. She knelt down and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” He shook his head, pulling himself back to his feet. “What do I need to do?”
“Increase the guard I believe. We believe we know who the killer is, but we’re not certain.”
“Who do you believe it is?”
The guard glanced in Clara’s direction. “There was a maid that came with the lady, she is nowhere to be found on the grounds.”
“Has everyone else been accounted for?” It looked like Liam was barely keeping himself together, but he was forcing himself to make decisions.
Clara could feel the judgmental gaze of the guard and she hoped that Liam wasn’t going to turn the same look her direction. She didn’t want to see that from him.
He didn’t turn her way, but the guard responded before she had to figure out exactly what she was going to say. “Everyone else is safe. Two dead. One woman missing.”
“Do you think a woman could have murdered two men in their beds?” Liam was frowning. She could hear it in his voice.
“I don’t know, but I fear the worst.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think, for now, Lady Highland should be escorted to her room and be kept under guard to assure her safety.”
“Surely you don’t think that she had anything to do with this?”
“I can’t make that judgment, sir. For right now we should be safe.”
Liam turned to Clara. “I know that you didn’t do this, but for now I need to make sure that everything is safe. Please go to your rooms. I’ll be there to speak to you in the morning.”
She was dismissed. It was as simple as that. She reminded herself that Liam had just lost so much of his life in one night. That the coldness allowed him to keep up with what he needed to do.
It wasn’t any real comfort to her as the guard led her away to sit in solitude while the men discussed what was going to happen in her direct future.
Chapter Five
Liam barely had time to dress before the reports started to pour in. The maid had been found dead, stabbed through the heart under a hedge in the courtyard. It marked the path that the assassin had used when they left.
“Are you sure?”
The guard nodded. “She was identified by one of Lady Highland’s guards.”
He knew that he was going to have to tell her something, but he had no idea how to do it. He sighed. “That isn’t going to go over well.”
“I know, do you want me to inform her of the loss?”
He shook his head. “It should be me. I’ll do it.”
The guard nodded. “Is there anything else that you need from me?”
“Have the servants bring up a cup of tea. I’ll go speak to Clara now. Have the captain handle all reports while I handle this.”
The man nodded and saw himself out. Liam was left to a thousand thoughts that he couldn’t control about himself. He had so much going on. So many things to do. So, he sat down behind the desk that had been his father’s, running his hand over the elegantly carved wood of the object with a heavy sigh. There was too much on his mind. The pain of the loss was still so fresh and he now had to go tell a young woman that her fiancé and the maid that had served her since she was a young girl was dead.
Nothing to do now but mourn the loss of the life that she had loved and the only one that had unconditionally loved her from the time that she was a child.
There was no good way to do this. No good way to deal with this. “I should have let the guard tell her.”
He shook his head, discounting his own frustration. “No. I need to be the one to tell her.”
He got to his feet and paced over towards the door. With each step, he reminded himself that he could do this, even if the little doubt still danced in the back of his head.
Each step brought him closer to breaking a young woman’s heart. Every step brought him closer to her. The woman that was supposed to marry his brother, but was now going to be sent back home to her family.
She had been so intent on following through with a marriage that she hated. There had to be a reason why. He just didn’t know what it was yet.
The door appeared in his vision entirely too early. He still hadn’t decided exactly what he was going to do about Clara. Or even if he could still help her. Or if he had the energy to even attempt it. He had just lost his remaining family, and that was killing him inside
.
There was a moment of debate in his head. He wondered if it would be best to wait to tell her about it. Perhaps until he was in a better place. He shook his head, chastising himself as the guards at her door looked at him strangely. He ignored the looks. There were more important things to deal with at that very moment. And one of them was the girl behind the door.
He drew in a shaky breath and knocked on the door.
“Come in.”
That was Clara’s voice. He recognized it as it washed over him like buttermilk and honey.
He gripped the handle and opened the door. There she was, standing there near a chair in the sitting area of her small suite of rooms. “I was hoping that we could talk.”
“Did you find anything?” She sounded desperate. “My maid?”
He sighed. “The guard found your maid.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was found dead in the courtyard.” He rubbed his face, deciding to leave the most violent details out of the story. Clara didn’t need to hear what he had heard.
“I can’t believe this happened. This can’t be happening to me.” She fell into the chair.
He made his way over to her, closing the door behind him. “There’s more news.”
“What could be worse than this?”
“I don’t know if it’s worse or not, but Reginald was found in his bed like my father was.”
She balked, taken aback from what he was saying. “Are you going to make it through this?”
He nodded. “I will.”
Her arms wrapped around him anyway. “Your entire family, gone.”
“I’m here to comfort you.” He shook his head, pushing her hands away before he could feel too much about the turn his life had taken.
“It’s your brother and father. My maid.”
“Your fiancé, maid and future father-in-law.” He took her hand.
She suddenly paled. “I- I know.”
“What’s wrong? What aren’t you telling me about this?”
