by Nicole Locke
‘Did you bring any...?’ The woman’s voice drifted as her travelling gaze fell on Reynold and held there.
He didn’t recognise the house or the room because he had never been here before. But he did recognise the woman lying on the bench with blankets draped over her thin frame. The sickness had ravaged that frame and sucked the glow from her cheeks.
He didn’t remember her name, her station, or the night he found temporary relief within her body.
He didn’t remember the thick gold of her hair because every woman he’d lain with had a similar colour. However, he did remember the colour of her eyes. He remembered that all too well, for when he first saw her he calculated that colour against his own dark grey and wondered whether the dark blue was too close to his own. That if there was a babe, it would be mistaken for his.
No woman was worth any unnecessary risk. But he remembered her false haughtiness and her weakness. Traits that suited his purpose as well as the feminine parts of her body. So they shared a bed for an hour or two and he paid her well. He always paid them well.
‘You,’ the woman whispered.
‘Me,’ he answered.
Weak and dying, but at his appearance, she attempted some dignity. While holding her lips together didn’t cease the coughs from racking her body, she daintily held a blood-crusted cloth to her mouth instead. When they eased, she shifted her eyes from Reynold back to Cilla. ‘You brought him.’
‘You’re sick, mistress,’ Cilla said with oily concern. ‘The babe needs her father.’
A widening of blue eyes, a flash of fear that no tainted cloth could cover. ‘That’s not her father. I told you who her father was. I told you.’
Despite the mother clutching the child close to lay down with her, it sat up fully and crammed its mouth with its fist. A girl, but only because the mother had called it such. Black hair, but in this dim light and his distance he could not tell the colour of her eyes.
‘We both know you didn’t mean it,’ Cilla said. ‘This child has hair like her father’s, not that dandy you pointed out with his balding pate.’
The woman kept her eyes and her conversation solely with Cilla, as if ignoring him or pretending he wasn’t there would make him disappear.
He wouldn’t leave now that he heard her terrified protestations. This dying woman was frightened by his presence.
His family connection, and their ruthlessness, was enough for her to worry, but wasn’t enough for her horror, or the sense of helplessness in her gaze and the vulnerability straining her frail body.
He saw it all though she refused to look at him. Her body convulsed again, worse than before. Great racking contortions as her knees drew up and she curled around herself and the babe.
Reynold did not move, nor did the child. Whatever illness was taking its mother, it had been doing so for a long time. Long enough that it didn’t concern the child. To the babe, the stench, the decay, the coughing was what a mother smelled and sounded like.
‘I told you,’ the woman said, her voice gasping, the coughing, the illness too much for her. ‘I trusted you.’
‘You’re alive, you are, and so is your babe,’ Cilla said.
The woman tried to draw breath. Too weak to protect her child from the servant who could easily pluck her away again. Too ill to protect the child from him. But he watched her push the child across her stomach until it rolled behind her so that it was wedged between her and the bench’s back. As if her prone wasted body could be any sort of a shield against him.
It was possible this child was his. ‘Is it mine?’
The woman never opened her eyes. Her pretending he didn’t exist was her last and only defence against him.
‘Is it mine?’ he repeated.
‘Of course it’s yours,’ Cilla retorted. ‘Little demon’s a year if it’s a day. A year of me waiting in this filth and waiting on this corpse for you to return.’
‘How could you...?’ the noblewoman said.
‘I did what you wanted,’ Cilla said. ‘What you begged so prettily for. What was it again? Not to let anyone know you were sick. Mustn’t let anyone know such common illness affected your noble blood.’
The woman opened her eyes again, not to look at Reynold, but to the servant. ‘I beg you... Save her.’
With hot certainty, Reynold knew it was no longer a possibility. The child was his... For this mother asked not to save the babe from poverty or sickness, but to save the child. From him.
‘Why would I do that?’ Cilla said. ‘He’s here to collect.’
The child... All his life women claimed pregnancy. None of them were true. The noblewoman ignored him, but he needed his answers.
‘How did you know who I was?’
All eyes went to him.
‘You don’t...remember me?’ she said.
No rejection in her reedy voice, only the slight sound of victory.
‘Your man...a carriage.’
He always hired a man. A temporary hire, for a temporary solution. He found a woman who would suit his needs, found a man for hire to procure her and bring her to an awaiting carriage.
All his women were done this way. A protection for him, a protection for them. This significant memory of hers provided no more information for him.
‘You couldn’t have known who I was,’ he said. ‘Who told you? Who—?’
‘It stinks and I don’t need to stay,’ Cilla interrupted. ‘It’s her, you know that now. You know that’s your babe—I want what’s my due.’ She laughed a cruel greed. Gleeful that her plan for great wealth had paid off. ‘I brought the happy family together. Don’t I deserve something?’
He’d forgotten the wretch was in the room. With his spare hand, Reynold brought his purse to the front. Let the full weight of it sound as he jangled the coins. It was heavy. He’d purposefully filled it to the brim.
The woman’s eyes bulged. For him, this wasn’t but convenient coin. The enamel gold box at his home was worth more than his purse, but she wasn’t a smart villain. Not smart at all, because she had threatened him.
‘I said I’d reward you amply. I came prepared.’
‘’Cause I spoke the truth,’ she said, her eyes remaining on the purse, not on the blade he hid in the folds of his cloak.
He walked slowly to her, raised the purse so it raised her eyes and exposed her neck. Her hands reached—and then...something that he had never done before. Something he was unprepared for: he hesitated.
The servant registered the blade and attacked with outstretched claws across his cheek. Feeling the sting, he turned the hilt and struck her across the head.
She collapsed to the floor like another bloodied rag. He stared at her incredulously as her chest rose and fell, as blood trickled from her temple. He hadn’t killed her. He always killed them.
The woman on the bench gasped. Another flinch, another prostrating of her body, this time towards the child propped up between the bench and her. She truly was trying to protect the child.
‘Please,’ she pleaded. ‘Don’t.
He turned the hilt, aimed the dagger towards the deceitful servant. Willed his hand to complete the deed. For his own survival, he shouldn’t leave witnesses. But he couldn’t do it. Angry, he whirled on the other woman, but his eyes went to the babe.
Was it because of this child he held his hand?
‘Don’t take the child?’ he bit out. ‘You think I want her?’ At some point, they all begged and pleaded with him for mercy. He never gave it. He shouldn’t be giving it now.
Walking away was still an option. He could tie the servant up, drag her to some more disreputable area of town with coin in her lap. Let the vultures there complete what he should have done.
The noblewoman looked soon for the grave and the child, far too young to escape this tomb of a house, would die, too. He should leave. Instead h
e asked questions.
‘What can I tie her with?’
Her brows drew in. ‘There might be...tassels, by the curtains.’
Did she not see the condition of the house? No tassels were left. But the worn curtains he ripped clear across, the fraying silk tearing easily. Used correctly, it would suffice to immobilise the servant.
Pointing at the servant, he said, ‘Does she know who I am?’
The woman gave a small shake.
‘Does. She. Know?’
‘I don’t know how she found you. I never wanted her to find you. I never wanted my child to be yours. You don’t deserve—’ She gasped for breath. Slumped. Her eyes closed. He watched her chest still for a moment before beginning again. When she opened her eyes, they were mere slits.
She couldn’t finish her words, but he understood all the same. That she didn’t want him to discover the child, that he didn’t deserve her.
How would she know he deserved no one? Who told her who his family was? Whoever it was had to die as well. ‘Who are you?’
‘Handmaiden,’ she whispered.
To the Queen. She was as high born as possible without being a ruler herself. He knew she must have some noble blood, had figured her for an unwanted bastard. But she had been more. She had been one of the influential ones and she had fallen to this?
More importantly, if she was close to the Queen, she knew his family. Knew his wealth, his power, knew everything.
He grabbed the gown of the servant, who jerked awake. Her eyes, registering his presence, widened before she fought him. ‘Cease!’ he ordered.
She clawed at his hands, kicked. Laughed. ‘Hit me, did you? You’ll pay for that.’
He dragged her to the iron railing. ‘I’ll pay for nothing.’
‘Cilla,’ the noblewoman whispered.
He grasped her hands to tie the ripped silk curtain around her wrists.
‘You’ll pay,’ Cilla sneered. ‘You’ll pay or your daughter will never be safe from—’
The slice across the servant’s neck was clean, precise. A mere splattering of her blood and it was over. His hand holding the dagger remained steady as he wiped the blood off with the servant’s gown.
The woman on the bench was silent, but Reynold felt her shocked eyes on him. Knew the child was awake and watching him as well.
‘You knew all along who I was,’ he said, sheathing the dagger and standing to his full height. His eyes stayed only on the corpse at his feet as a familiar weariness overtook him. He was so tired of killing.
‘I...’ she said. He swung his gaze to hers. They widened in fear as they should. He didn’t care what she saw in his eyes. She wouldn’t live long enough to tell.
‘I saw...you at court,’ she said, licking her lips. ‘Then in the carriage.’
No one had told her who he was...and she had told no one who he was. Even as she carried his child. While she couldn’t earn coin, while she grew sick. A hint to his family and that child, squashed between her rotting body and the mouldy bench, would have been used against him.
Everyone was alive, so he knew she had told no one of this child because she didn’t want anyone to know it was... It was—
Two steps over and he snatched the child. No cries, no sounds. Was it mute? Was it deaf? It was aware, as he was in that moment. Dim light, but enough to see what he thought he never would. Grey eyes. Black hair. A girl by all accounts. But his.
His.
An almost keening sound burst from deep in his chest. One he barely held in check. But the emotion was there and it flooded him, made his knees weak and he locked them tight. If he fell.... Below his feet was the blood of sickness and human waste.
His child wouldn’t touch any of this. Shouldn’t be touching him, but he couldn’t let her go. Now that he held her, now that he knew the truth. That hope, that longing, coiled around his blackened heart. Everything within him changed.
His.
This child...this child was vulnerable. To him, to the elements, to his family. To the sickness saturated into the air they breathed.
‘Foolish woman!’
He could kill her for risking his life, for risking his child’s. Was his reputation so horrific she thought this was better?
The answer was obvious. Of course she did—and perhaps she was right. Death was here, but it was an honest one. He hadn’t been honest since he was a babe. All softer emotions were wrenched from him. They had been replaced with survival, and tricks, and games and weapons a long time ago.
‘What is her name?’
Brows drawn in. ‘You...are different.’
Over several years, he’d threatened many, killed more than that. Relished his brother’s murder by another’s hand. Black deeds left scars visible to all.
‘You...wanted to spare her.’
The servant. ‘A ridiculous lie,’ he lied.
‘You want to keep...’ a harsh breath ‘...the name I gave her. Different. You never asked for mine. It’s Grace,’ she whispered.
For the first time, he looked at the child he held. Grey eyes absorbing him. No greed, no cruelty. Nothing of his life or her mother’s affecting her. Yet she watched him. Watched him. Grace. Yes, the name was hers.
‘I’ll send a healer,’ he said, having no intention of returning.
The woman released a defeated sound. It was as grief stricken as the sounds he heard before she knew he was here. Before she knew he’d come to take the child.
‘No,’ she said, one hand raised to stop him. ‘Take me.’
A rustling and she pushed the blankets covering her to the floor.
He was accosted by the sight, by the smell. This was the decay, not the house or the chamber pot or the bloody coughs. The decay was her flesh decomposing while she still lived.
She wanted him to kill her. Before he could check himself, he glanced at the servant.
Her eyes widened as she took in his hesitancy. ‘You...can’t?’
Of course he could. He needed to. It was...the child. He didn’t want to kill in front of her.
‘You’d let me suffer?’
Legs, shredded. Mere holes to her bones. She was no more than a corpse still alive. And she was in so much pain. Why was he caring?
‘No one,’ she repeated, ‘can save me.’
No. No, they couldn’t.
‘I need you to kill me. What will you tell her? That you let me die...in agony?’
For the first time in years, Reynold’s heart sped in indecision. For once, he felt torn between what he should do and what he wanted to do.
He had hesitated killing the servant. He didn’t want to kill this child’s mother. Both were necessary if he wanted to truly protect himself and Grace from his family’s revenge.
‘You have Grace. Now do what—’ a wheezing breath ‘—you came to do.’
Keeping a child wasn’t what he came to do. Cleverly constructed life, carefully planned so his game could be played out.
‘I came to kill you, the servant and the babe.’ He said the words, but there was no heat in them.
‘You won’t kill her,’ she wheezed again. ‘You know...her name. Kill me.’
Grace. The name fit, just as the child fit in his arms. His child. Setting her on a broken chair, away from the rags, far from the spilled refuse. As far away from the stench of decay, from the heap of a crumpled corpse, from the death of her mother.
A child. So young. And though they’d just met, he hadn’t protected her from the darkest parts of his life, from the stench of avarice, greed, fear.
Grace had watched it with her grey eyes. Absorbed it as she would his final act of the night. The act of taking her away from the mother who loved her.
That soft expression, that comforting hand on her bared head and the sobbing from before when she thought her child gone forev
er. This woman loved her child enough to protect her against him.
He straightened and took the few steps to the bench. Loomed over her as Death with a scythe. This woman, this stranger, laid still. No flinching to flee, no cries of mercy or coughing because her battered soul and body knew their suffering was about to end.
There were no more words to say. There were no answers and the longer the child was in this house, the more chance for her to fall ill. For him as well.
He held the blade up so the glint of the waning moonlight through the windows played with it; so she’d know his purpose. She kept her eyes on him, bent her neck to give him access. To make the blade cut cleaner, more swiftly. This way, if he chose, he could make it painless.
His hand trembled.
The woman’s eyes flashed with alarm, hatred. ‘Do it!’
He adjusted his grip.
‘I intended to keep her from you,’ she panted. ‘Denied forever. Your child. Denied her. Grace.’
His body changed. He had the child, vulnerable, exposed to his family, to the elements. To this woman who couldn’t care for her. But for a greedy servant, he’d never have known she existed. A child. His. A family he wanted and she had meant to keep from him. Hatred coursed and burned in his veins. Familiar. Needed. His hand steadied. Seething rage. Unfettered malevolence and he let this noblewoman see it all.
‘You monster.’ She spat blood. Her head lolled to the side. Her eyes full of anger, of relief, closed. She’d asked for mercy and he gave her death.
‘Yes, yes, I am.’ He raised the knife and held.
The woman before him was already dead.
Chapter Four
One stroll through the marketplace and it was all too easy to discover the baker whose loaves were stolen. Gabriel picked his place well if he wanted to escape with four loaves. It was in the busiest part of the market and one of the more luxurious stalls with actual shelves carved like animals. The loaves of bread left were golden, baked from the finest of flours and artfully displayed. The baker’s design was clear though the morning light was dim.
She’d walked past this particular stall many times to smell the honey used in each loaf. Never, ever would she had thought to be in possession of them or how the loaves must have smelled to a starving child.
