by Nicole Locke
And an avalanche of vexing moments like these. ‘They are servants—nothing more than you are to me.’
At Louve’s burst of laughter, Reynold almost broke his gaze from the fire. Almost gave a reaction.
‘So you have a child,’ Louve said. ‘And have brought a stranger in to care for her.’
He wanted to deny it. But Louve had seen him bring her home. ‘You must not mention them outside this house.’
Louve whistled low. ‘You already gave the men the lecture and the false story on who they are. You haven’t fooled any of us.’
Reynold knew it and still he risked it. With their knowledge of Grace, he would either pay to keep them silent...or have them killed. He kept his eye on Louve, the mercenary, and the truth of the words. What he saw there made him...wary. ‘You don’t intend to betray me.’
‘You have to know the men talked and we made a pact. No one desires to harm women and children. Especially not them.’
Loyalty among hired swords. Unheard of. Yet Reynold believed him. Had he grown soft? He held Grace and now he was someone who cared and surrounded himself with loyal servants. It was too fantastical to be true, but something felt...unlocked inside him when he held Grace.
He suddenly wanted to ask Louve a thousand questions; stand up and do a thousand more deeds. A chaotic mess he’d hadn’t felt in years, if ever. None of his immediate thoughts or deeds were suitable. Especially when Louve watched him so carefully. ‘You know what would happen to them if my family discovers the truth.’
‘That is a secret only I am aware of and, since you and I are friends—’
‘We are not friends.’
‘You can’t kill or bribe me. I’m here for other reasons.’
‘Name something other than friendship.’
Louve shrugged. ‘Curiosity. She’s not the mother. I know you too well for that. And, usually, pretending your daughter is a servant’s would be a clever scheme, except...you are different with them. It’s apparent they mean more to you. And now you’re trusting and sharing your secrets with me.’
He hadn’t meant to share anything. If his family detected any weakness, his daughter would be killed. Reynold looked away from Louve’s knowing eyes.
‘My trust is earned because I pay you.’
‘Not all who are here are similarly motivated.’ Louve adjusted in his chair. ‘You should know some of the men are delighted. Some have families they left—a woman and child remind them why they work for you and what they save for. Some, however, think them a liability.’
Though he wanted to brandish the goblet, Reynold set the wine down carefully. ‘Who are the ones who think ill of keeping them here?’
Louve swirled his drink. ‘I’ll take care of them. It’s why you’ve kept me, though others have left, isn’t it? To do these odd tasks you can trust no one else with. They will be no threat.’
There was no negotiating with this man. A whim to take him in and he hadn’t seen at the time there would be an issue. Now there was. Louve called him by his name and drank his wine, was too independent to control. But he believed him.
That didn’t mean he’d leave his child and the woman kidnapped to care for her without protection. ‘Very well.’
Louve raised a brow. ‘Are you trusting me now?’
He never trusted anyone. Lately, he was beginning to not trust himself. Standing, he said, ‘I know where you sleep and where you go when you leave this house.’
Louve huffed, but the sound of laughter was there in the frustrated sound. ‘You trust me.’
Reynold strode from the dining hall and out to the courtyard. The blistering wind did nothing to cool his temper. Damn Louve and his conversations. He worried about his family discovering Grace and now he worried about men who were supposed to protect him.
Louve was correct. He was different. Because above it all, he worried about Aliette. Did Aliette sleep now outside her door? Did she use a quilt? It wasn’t warm down there. Was the door opened or closed to Grace?
Swiftly he took the stairs and strode past the men’s quarters. Why would she do this? Down the darkened hallway, he slowed his step to approach silently, until he saw her.
A quilt, nothing more, partly covered her. The door behind her back was opened. He could glimpse the basket with Grace sleeping peacefully.
The woman, asleep, gripped in a nightmare, was not. Louve said they checked on her because she made sounds. These weren’t sounds. The thief was whimpering, her hands were clenched, her body curled as if deflecting blows.
She was fighting something he didn’t want to see and knew she wouldn’t want him to know.
Crouching down, he almost touched her, but didn’t dare. If he did, his own self-preservation would crumble. His tearing need to clutch her close, protect her, frightened him.
‘Get up,’ he whispered. ‘You’re dreaming, wake up.’
A jerk of her hand, a stop to the heart-wrenching sounds. Her eyes opened wide and she gasped a choked scream.
He did touch her then. On her shoulder, which was cold against his bare hand. Damn Louve. Damn her. He wouldn’t leave her like this.
‘You’re moving to my rooms.’
She sat up. ‘What...happened?’
He didn’t know what compelled him. What need was clawing at him to hold and protect her. ‘There’s no time for explanations. It’s late and I’m tired. I’ll carry Grace and the basket, but you’ll need to bring spare bedding.’
‘But—’
‘Do you want me to carry you as well?’
Scrambling to stand, she pushed her hair out of her face. ‘I’ll follow you.’
She capitulated too easily. No further questions, even her soft exhale was one of relief. She had been suffering from nightmares, cold floors and God knew what else. All this time they’d been reading in the study and she had told him nothing.
Entering the study, he lowered Grace’s basket to the floor, took the bedding from the thief’s arms and tossed it on to the padded bench. Then he opened the door to the right. This was his private chamber, stark of any comforts. He didn’t deserve them when he slept.
He had a purpose to achieve, to rid the world of his manipulative family, and sleeping was a vulnerability he could ill afford. He only slept and dressed here and, even then, he never lingered. Thus, the room contained only a few chests, a perch to hang his clothes, and a bed.
Even so... The bed linens were crumpled, the pillows pushed to the floor. His turbulent emotions depicted in the sharpest, most intimate way. Was his need for her here this transparent?
Never. He moved her because if she didn’t sleep, she wouldn’t care for Grace as he needed her to. He’d never questioned himself before. He’d be dead if he did. If he questioned her role in his game—any of their roles—they’d all be dead.
‘This is your room,’ she said numbly, taking in the room’s meagre contents.
‘I will sleep in the study on the bench. This will be yours and Grace’s room from now on.’
‘But—’
‘Don’t question what I order, thief.’
She looked to the room, then back to him. ‘This is too much.’
‘It is necessary.’
She frowned as if she saw through him. Her next sentence proved him right.
‘I can’t keep calling you “sir.”’
‘Everyone does.’
‘But—’ she looked at Grace in his arms ‘—it doesn’t feel right. You’ve asked me to care for the child. She’ll want to know your name.’
He frowned at that. ‘Despite the unusual circumstances of your arrival, you are a servant. All those who serve, call me sir.’
‘I don’t serve you.’ She opened her mouth as if to argue more. Shook her head once, twice. ‘Why do the stories represent abundance to you, but not the books themselves? The other
day, you said the stories were all you had.’
It had been a mistake to tell her. ‘It matters not. It is late.’
‘Is it because your wealth is meaningless? Why would it be meaningless?’
He needed her not to look at him so closely. ‘Why are you asking me these questions? Is it because you have nothing that you can’t comprehend that such wealth would have no meaning?’
He regretted his cruel words the moment they were said. But instead of temper or tears, her lips curved in a knowing smile. ‘You do that. Change subjects, become cruel or conceited when you don’t want to answer something.’
‘I told you that is who I am.’
‘I watch you. It is as if you’re trying to be something you’re not.’
‘We should sleep,’ he said instead.
She pointed to him, to the room behind her. ‘You read to me—you’re giving me your room. There’s more between us, isn’t there?’
‘Such haste since we hardly know each other.’
She flushed, but her gaze grew determined. ‘There you did it again. You don’t mean that. And I said it because it’s true. Because...’
There was a connection and one they shouldn’t explore. ‘Giving you my room means nothing. You have nightmares and my men aren’t sleeping.’
With a small huff of breath that could have been exasperation or disappointment, she said, ‘Won’t I keep you awake?’
‘I don’t sleep the way they need to.’ With her so near, he wouldn’t be sleeping at all. ‘What is it about the dark that upsets you?’
Her eyes became contemplative. As if she was trying to solve a problematic puzzle. ‘There is something about Darkness, but I have so many questions.’
He already knew, before she asked, that he wouldn’t answer them.
‘Tell me about Grace,’ she said.
‘No.’
‘You say you’re not the father, but then who is?’ she continued. ‘Who are you to her and why did you bring me here? There’s enough help here to take care of her. You didn’t have to rescue me from the guard. And you rescued her, too, didn’t you?’
All logical, reasonable questions and ones he would never answer. All pointed and accurate observations and ones he never meant to reveal.
‘Silence,’ she said.
‘You haven’t answered my own questions about the dark.’
Almost smiling, she took a step closer. ‘I don’t know what it is about the dark, but the longer I’m in it the less I feel broken. But there’s too many contradictions. I don’t understand it.’
He didn’t understand her words, but he noted her step, the startling nearness of her. Pivoting, he tucked Grace into her basket and snapped the linens to spread on the bench. But he didn’t get that far.
The thief was by his side, searching his gaze that he purposefully turned away. It was a mistake bringing her here into his home, an error to think a thief could care for his daughter and no one would know.
He was a fool to show her where he read, worked, where he slept. No one was allowed in this room. A lapse in judgement, an error, but she was looking at him with wonder on her face.
There’s more between us, isn’t there?
He couldn’t answer her questions. He was disintegrating. One feather at a time plummeting at her feet the longer he stayed in her presence.
‘You need to go to bed.’
‘You kidnapped me, took me from my—’ She shook her head. ‘But you’ve fed and clothed me. The mercenaries, despite their not talking, are almost kind. I’ve seen your care with them. You hold Grace like you never want to let her go.’ Another step closer so that her body was pressed against the bedding he held like a shield.
‘And I shouldn’t want, should I? But I’m not used to waiting, and wondering. I need to ask—why did you move me to your rooms? No one else is invited here. Just me, day after day. Why?’
Her soft questions he could withstand, but her eyes... Her imploring eyes battered him like gusts of harsh wind demanding more. As if she asked one question, but there were others, so many others she didn’t dare ask.
But he felt them all the same. His body knew... He could hear the flapping of useless wings. His entire body urging him to drop the bedding, to take.
Their doom if he did.
‘On the landing...you looked at me.’
He couldn’t stay in his game and think of her bathing. He couldn’t answer her and keep his control. He had to give her something else, not him. ‘Tomorrow, you can go outside these walls—a mercenary will accompany you. Is that what these questions are about? If you gained freedom, would that ease your fears?’
A look of surprise and then a gleam of tears. ‘Yes, yes, it would very much.’
It was the utter joy in her gaze that was his undoing. Joy that gave strong currents to his futile toiling. He dropped the bedding and cradled her face before he realised he had flown so close.
‘Stop watching me. Stop asking your questions,’ Darkness whispered against her lips. ‘You’re not safe here.’
Aliette suspected none of them were. Not in this fortress, not in a bedroom void of forgiveness. Not in the dead of night. ‘Neither are you.’
A shiver of his lips against her own, but she didn’t move while something was held in balance.
Something she didn’t want to end. Not while he swept his thumbs across her cheeks and tugged at her hair behind her ears. Not while his elegant fingers held her as if she was more precious than illustrated parchment.
Waiting, when it felt as if he’d finally answer her with the truth. She wouldn’t stand for it. Gripping his wrists, she pulled herself up, closing that breath of space between them until her lips touched his.
The pinch of fingers tightening in her hair, the hitch to his breath before he tore his lips away, took a step back, and another. His gaze rushing from her, to the bedroom behind, to the richly laden tables. He grabbed one solitary book, clenched it between his hands before he set it down. It was the same book he had picked up and set down countless times before. And his expression... It was as if the book simultaneously comforted and wounded him.
His eyes darting to the book he set down and back to her, he pivoted and almost tripped over Grace’s basket. A harsh exhale of his breath, one that she couldn’t match. She’d lost her ability to breathe. He hadn’t kissed her. He didn’t want to.
Without looking at him, she bolted to the basket and hefted it. His eyes flickered to the child again as if he was helpless to do so.
She didn’t know what was more unexpected. Darkness longing to cradle a child, or her wanting to leave Grace with a man who had torn her from her life.
He acted as if they were strangers and a part of her knew that. Her captor didn’t starve babies and would know how to hold them if Grace had been born here. No, this dark man kidnapped Grace away from her mother, away from her family.
At that thought, she waited to feel what she should have. Something of her own past. Of being abandoned and knowing she’d always be so. If not for Vernon, Helewise and Gabriel, what kind of woman would she be?
Perhaps more cautious, timid. Less naive. Not grasping him and trying to pull him closer. This man took her away from her family, despite everything else, she must not forget that.
‘Do you want her tonight?’ she said.
He jerked as if from a trance. ‘No, she’s yours.’
She didn’t believe him. His words said one thing, his deeds another. He stared at the child, a line between his brows, his lips slightly parted, softening them. A fierce caring.
Had her parents ever looked at her so? She wasn’t prepared for that thought or for this man to display it. Her heart couldn’t take it.
‘Many winters ago,’ she said, ‘I came across a bundle of blankets heaped among a pile of refuse. I thought my luck had finally turned.
A bit of cleaning and I’d have protection, warmth, shelter.’
His brows drew in. ‘It wasn’t blankets.’
She shook her head. ‘It was an abandoned infant. Frozen. His little fingers curled as if holding on to something precious.’
‘You didn’t take the blankets,’ he said, giving a hard swallow when she nodded. ‘Why, when you needed them and could do nothing for a baby who was dead?’
‘Because that child was left those at least. It showed they cared, didn’t it?’
‘What happened to you—why do you have no parents?’
He didn’t deserve the answer to that question. ‘If I had such a child, I wouldn’t have left them behind. If I had a child, I’d claim her.’
His scarred hand clenched, once. Twice. ‘Do you think I don’t want to?’
She felt the truth of those words though they were hardly a confession, but more an admittance to what she knew. More than that, he told her that though he might not want her, he did want Grace. And so, when she stepped back into the bedroom, her hand on the door to close it between them, she had to give him something.
‘My name—’
He looked at her then. He looked and his dark gaze didn’t let her go.
‘My name is Aliette.’
Chapter Fifteen
Aliette attempted to hide her giddy step as she gave Grace over to the scarred mercenary for a few hours. She was off to market, free to leave the fortress and walk the Paris streets again. But she couldn’t hide the grin she gave the two guards at the doors who held them wide open as if she was royalty.
Sweeping outside, she ignored the mercenary at her side. He was one of the men who had taken her from her family. The one who stopped her arm from breaking, but even so, he was her enemy for today. Because with him, she knew she couldn’t escape. Still, she hoped to catch a sight of Gabriel and see that he was safe. Or there was the issue that if he saw her first, then—
‘You could have said I spoke.’
Aliette jumped. She couldn’t help it. Though the voice was soft and melodious, she’d grown used to the mercenaries not speaking.
