Linda Needham (11 page)

“Oh, Talia, Talia! Look what he gave me!” Lissa
dodged her way through the tables in the great hall, a dark bundle of fur tucked under her arm, trailing Gemma and Fiona in her wake.

“Now Lissa has her very own bunny!” Gemma said.

“He said his name is Licorice.” Lissa cuddled the rabbit against her cheek in an ecstasy of love.

She’d never seen the girls so carefree, and the sound of their laughter made her heart and her hopes lift and soar. And all this unfettered joy had been made possible only because Alex had come through the gates of her castle.

And he’d stayed. Steadfastly.

He’d brought her such a simple and seductive peace, with his disciplined army and his efficiency, the calming influence he had on her householders and the villagers and her family.

His captivating smile.

Perhaps…yes, perhaps.

“Lissa,” Talia said, swallowing the lump in her throat as she set a ewer on the table, “do you mean that this amazing bunny told you his own name?”

“Noooo, Talia!
He
did!” Lissa spun around and pointed back toward the door, to the broad-shouldered shape just entering the great hall.

Alex was striding easily toward them, his saddlepack draped over his shoulder.

“Ah, another daring rescue, my lord?” Talia
asked, her pulse racing for no reason at all, except that the provoking man seemed to become more handsome with every hour.

“Hardly daring, my lady. I found old Licorice in my horse’s stall, cowering behind the manger.”

Lissa was at his elbow, gazing up at him, the light of pure adoration in her eyes. “Thank you, my lord. I’ll love him forever.”

And didn’t the man smile patiently back at Lissa as he ran his fingers over the rabbit’s ears. “Do keep him out of the stables.”

“He’ll go everywhere with me and Gemma and Radish.”

Talia didn’t know what to make of the scene, the girls so completely enthralled with their toweringly tall new hero, her own stomach alive with butterflies.

“Fiona, I think Licorice and Radish need a large basket to live in together. Would you mind taking the girls to Quigley? He’ll know where to find one.”

Fiona grinned. “Right away, Talia!” The girls ran out of the great hall with Fiona, the three of them chattering and laughing.

“Do they ever stop, Talia?” Alex asked, settling the bag on the table.

“Only when they’re sleeping, I’m afraid. They like you, Alex. You’re in their every bedtime prayer.” She hadn’t meant to admit that to him, but he looked nonplussed, then shyly pleased.

“Well, they are the first then, in all the world.” A confession that instantly shortened the distance she’d been striving to keep between them, tested it.

“Actually, you’re in mine as well.” He’d crept into them, and into her dreams, into her days.

“Am I?” The lout lifted a skeptical brow. “God help me, woman!”

“Selfishly, of course. Because, well”—she felt more than a little vulnerable—“I really ought to confess something to you.”

“Confess at your own risk, Talia. I’m no priest to keep your confidences.”

She liked his smile, the easiness of it, and the even easier way he followed her into the crowded, fragrant kitchen, past the elevated caldrons of stew and the bread ovens and then up and up the baketower stairs and into the deserted spice pantry.

“It’s only that despite our differences, Alex, I have been meaning to thank you for making the castle and the village safe again for the children.” She stopped in front of the tall herb chest, turned and leaned against it, wondering why her heart had started thudding against her ribs.

And if it was safe to be alone with him like this. In an intensely aromatic room, motes of dust and spice and bits of day riding the bright rays of sunlight slicing through the pair of arrow loops, striping his shoulders as he approached.

“’Tis my job, madam. To secure Carrisford and keep it that way.”

Yes, and he had. Splendidly. She’d thought, impossibly.

“It’s just that my sisters have been confined to the family ward for so long. But little girls need fresh air and sunshine and a place to run. And now you’ve given that back to them. I thank you.”

It occurred to her that he’d changed in the last few moments, or she had. Or both of them. Because he seemed to be all around her, his hands spread out on the chest door on either side of her head, his breath so like a kiss.

In fact, he could kiss her, and she wouldn’t complain at all. She might even like it.

She would definitely like it. Love it.

“Go ahead, Alex. You might as well.”

“Might as well what, Talia?” He brushed her name along her jaw, against her cheek, his mouth so close to hers, she could turn and collect his kiss.

She let out a long sigh. “You might as well give it a try. It’s only a matter of time.”

“Before what?”

He smelled of male and leather, roused and breathing deeply. “Before the inevitable happens, though I did tell you that it wouldn’t ever.”

He lifted a brow and then went back to nuzzling. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m trying to tell you that—”

Mother Mary, she’d decided! Somewhere in the back of her mind, sometime ago, she’d decided to trust him.

With everything and everyone she loved.

Oh, yes! The rightest thing she’d done in a long, long time.

“That…?” he asked, prompting her with a nudge against her nose.

Great heavens, it all seemed so perfectly clear to her now, her stubborn foolishness and his excellence.

“You must remember, Alex, that I very firmly told you, when you first came to Carrisford—and many, many times since—that I would never agree to marry you.”

His eyes tracked hers, held her gaze for the longest time, before he made a low, derisive grunt that was steeped in amusement. “You’ve made that very clear, madam.”

“Aye, but now I’ve been…” He suddenly looked tremendously tall, as powerful as she was helpless against him, without him.

Her perfect protector.

“You’ve been what, madam?”

She obviously wasn’t making herself clear. Not that she could be faulted for it—with the man hovering like this, raking his fingers through the hair at her temples, tilting her head up to him.

If he’d only just haul off and kiss her, the subject would be broached and racing forward. He
would understand that she’d like nothing better than to marry him.

“I’ve been thinking, Alex….”

“God help us all.” His brow was quirked, amused and seemingly ready for anything. “About what?”

Mother Mary, this was coming to be a dreadfully immodest proposal. “I really shouldn’t be so forward, Alex, but…uhm, this is business after all—”

“Business?”

“I’m only thinking of what’s best for my family and my people.”

“Best in what way?” He lifted her chin with his knuckle as though looking into her eyes would help to unmuddy her thoughts. “What are you talking about?”

“The best possible future for everyone, given…”

“Given what?”

“Well, the war and the troubles that have come with it.” Peace and honor and his powerful arms, his fine sense of humor. “So I’ve changed my mind.”

He was looking at her as though she had grown a horn out of the middle of her forehead. “About…?”

“You.”

He straightened, a smile stuck into the shadows at the corners of his eyes. “I’ve noticed that some
what. You haven’t thrown a cabbage at me in days.”

Proposing marriage to a strapping man like Alex wasn’t as easy as it seemed. “This will sound very forward, Alex, but I’ve changed my mind about marriage.”

“In what way?”

“Very specifically, about you.”

“Me?”

“So now…after all my chiding and warnings—my answer is
yes
.”

He shook his head lightly, his black hair drifting against his brow. “Your answer to what, Talia?”

It would certainly help if the man wasn’t being quite so dense. “I’m telling you that if you choose to insist upon a marriage to me, Alex, I won’t object.”

Not in the least.

“Marriage?” He narrowed his eyes at her, canting his head as though he’d never heard the word before.

“Yes.”

“To you?”

“It was inevitable, as I said. It always has been. But this time, a marriage might really be for the best.”

“This time?”

Alex had heard that term, dozens of times since he arrived, from everyone he’d met.

He stood away from her, already cursing this wayward need for her that he’d so stupidly acted upon. “What the devil do you mean by ‘this time’? Are you talking about Rufus?”

“About Aymon and Count Roderick before him—only I was to marry Roderick’s son, that time. The terms had just been decided when Aymon showed up outside the gates.”

He wanted not to have heard this, wanted the hot stuffiness to leave his chest. “Are you telling me that you were to marry Aymon de Saville as well?”

She nodded, as though this was a simple thing. “Aye, and Roderick’s son as well. And his nephew’s second cousin just before that. All six of my previous guardians, in fact. One way or the other.”

Bloody hell. He took her hand and sat her down at a table, on a short bench before bending to her.

“Please, Talia. What the devil does ‘one way or the other’ mean?” Besides this unnamed churning in his gut.

She tilted her head, apparently puzzled. “Marriages arranged for me. I thought you understood, Alex.”

“I damned well
don’t
understand! Explain to me how you came to be nearly married to three men.”

She laced her fingers and rested her hands on
the table. “Well, six men, actually. I’ve almost been married six times in two years.”

He lost his breath, had to drag it back inside him before he could speak. “Six, Talia?” Great God.

She sighed, her brow fretting. “Six near weddings, stopped somewhere between the betrothal and the actual wedding. Which has been the one single blessing of having Carrisford regularly besieged and overrun—no time to complete the marriage contract or the ceremony.”

The ceremony be damned! What of groping hands and lustful cravings? The romance before the wedding?

“Bloody hell, woman, how close have you come to the marriage bed?”

“Only as far as the church steps—with Rufus. The rings had nearly been blessed, as I told you before. Your arrival was the closest call of any. If you hadn’t come…” Talia pinched a little frown between her lips, then shook her head. “I can’t imagine.”

Nor could he.

Damnation, no wonder she had always assumed that he would marry her at the first opportunity and that she had objected so fiercely to the prospect. “You were forced each of these times?”

“I was agreeable the first time,” she said, counting off the tips of her fingers as she stood and paced away from him, “terrified the second, bartered the third, blackmailed the fourth, tricked
the fifth time, and…well”—she turned back to him, her eyes watery and her words unsteady—“Rufus threatened to marry off my Brenna to his unspeakable marshal if I didn’t agree.”

“The bloody bastard.”

“And then you came along, Alex.” Her voice softened to honey. “With your orderly army and your knightly courtesy toward everyone, and your amazing willingness to wade into a field of mud to rescue a rabbit. Not to say that you’re not stone-headed and blustery and difficult to predict.” She smiled brightly at him as she went to the cabinet door and opened it. “But you’ve governed with honor and compassion. You’ve respected the lives of my people. You’ve trained up your army to be the most fiercesome force in the kingdom, so that they’re ready to protect Carrisford against anyone who might try to take us.”

“Talia, I—”

“You’ve been the best of guardians, Alex.” She paused in her astonishing speech, clutching a bundle of rosemary in her hands. “I can only imagine that you will be the very best of husbands.”

And then she was gone.

Bloody, bleeding hell.

“T
he very best of husbands?”

Bloody hell! The woman had been coerced into a despicable marriage by every one of those bastards who had been charged with protecting her.

Yet, what were his plans for the lady? As diabolical as any of the others had been. To sell her to the highest bidder. To profit from her.

To be there at the wedding, making sure the transaction was completed. Arranging a profitable marriage to his ward had seemed simple. An exchange for a more strategic castle. Logical. Intelligent.

The very best of husbands.

He winced and glanced at the door, feeling the compelling warmth of her shadow, her sweet,
curling scent, which seemed to have seeped into his blood.

Damnation, he didn’t need this. These great clouds of guilt. The temptation. She wasn’t in his plans. Carrisford was nearly indefensible in its present condition. Hell, in any condition. To have its walls breached six times in two years was a bloody poor record.

He needed a better castle, larger, with a prestige all its own. He needed to marry into an honorable title to erase the shame of his father’s name, to find a far more suitable heiress than the lady Talia of Carrisford.

Wanting to outpace his culpability in this disreputable game of kings and castles and the trappings of dominion, to shrug off this highly discrepant speculation that he might even consider settling for less, Alex left the scented room and stomped out toward the lists.

All the better to give and to receive a good battering.

He got as far as the barbican and met Leod coming through the main gate, pulling a cart full of kindling.

“’Tis a lovely day, my lord.”

“Aye, Leod,” he said through his teeth, stopping for a moment to warm his hands over a fire basket.

“A bit chilly though,” Leod said as he joined
Alex at the fire, turning to warm his backside. “Has my lady been giving you trouble, then?”

“How do you mean trouble?”

“She’s always been an opinionated little thing.”

Alex blew out his cheeks. “Then you’ve known her for a long time, have you?”

“Since she was but a glint in her good father’s eye.”

Alex looked up and around the timbered pickets, wondering what Talia’s father had done to protect Carrisford and his herd of daughters.

“Why do you stay here, Leod? You and Jasper and Quigley?”

“She’s our lady, isn’t she?, my lord.” Leod gave a goes-without-saying snort that Alex could only envy for its undiluted intensity. “We’d each one of us gladly lay down our lives for her.”

For some hell-borne reason, he felt the backs of his eyes begin to sting. An old, unfriendly feeling.

“You’d be doing yourself a favor if you stayed, too, my lord.”

His heart thudded once, then stopped. “Meaning what, Leod?”

“Well, they don’t get any better than our Talia. Not anywhere near better.”

Alex glanced up at the late-afternoon greyness, feeling less than adequate at the moment. “A good day to you, Leod. Keep yourself warm, else the woman will have my head.”

He left the barbican to the sound of Leod’s rumbling laughter, cleared his head with a huge breath, and continued to the lists, the pale sunlight illuminating everything that was wrong with the castle.

Hell, there was nothing right about it. And not nearly enough for him.

Carrisford.

Its threadbare wardship.

Its extraordinary lady.

Christ, he would have to confess his plans to her—tonight—if he could track her down. He owed her that much, after her confession and everything that she’d been through.

Her honesty and her untimely expectations.

He kept himself busy at the lists until supper, then took his meal in the guardtower, hiding from her like the coward he was, unwilling to chance a casual meeting with Talia while he kept his secret from her.

He waited until he knew she’d have put her sisters to bed, till the lights darkened in the family ward, then changed out of his hauberk and climbed the stairs to the landing in front of her chamber.

The points of his speech now an orderly cascade of logic, he knocked hard, rattling the latch and the hinges and bringing her to throw open the panel.

“What is it, Alex?” Large beautiful, luminous
eyes, thickly lashed, so liquid he could barely think. “Are we under attack again?”

Holy Christ. Her nightgown was loosely draped across her shoulders, flowing and light. Her wild hair, unfettered and lit from behind by a low brazier. She was clutching a soft cloth against her chest.

“What’s happened, Alex?” He heard her question, saw the worry on her brow, but he hadn’t a thought in his head or a word on his tongue.

But oh, there was lust in his loins. Raw and unrighteous. Boiling his brain.

“Come inside, then.” She took him by the hand and boldly pulled him through the doorway. “The draft is frightful out there.”

The soft slip of her fingers lacing through his righted his thoughts immediately, drove him away from her and deeper into the chamber.

Just tell her.

“I missed you at supper,” she said softly.

Domesticity. Tantalizing bits of it.

“I’m sorry. I had dealings at the guardhouse.”

Just say it.
Tell her that he had no plans to marry her himself.

Quite the opposite, in fact, madam. I plan to arrange a suitable marriage for you—to another man.

There. Short and to the point. Anything to stop her from constantly making her incorrect assumptions and bringing up the subject of a marriage between them.

Anything to push away this impossible yearning for her, for the family that he’d never had, the deep itch to stay.

“Since we’re not under attack, how can I help you?”

By not being quite so lovely.

He loved losing himself in her gaze, but couldn’t bring himself to look there just yet. He caught his hand around the bedpost.

“It’s just that I wanted you to know that—” Christ, this ought to be simpler, ought to fit more lightly against his tongue, because this was exactly the direction he wanted his life to take.

“To know what, Alex?” She seemed overly patient, as though she’d already forgiven him for leading her to believe that he would marry her.

“It’s just that you needn’t worry about marriage or…that sort of thing.”

“What do you mean, Alex?”

Feeling bereft and thoroughly dishonest, he spun around to face her. “It’s just that…I don’t…” Oh, hell, this was going well. Struck the breath from him. “You see, Talia, I…won’t be…actually, I can’t marry you.”

She blinked once at him, then set her mouth in a line. “Can’t, Alex?”

He wanted more from her than this high-chested, breathless staring. Relief or joy or indignation. Anything.

“What I meant to say, Talia…to clear this up between us before it goes any further, is…that I have no plans to marry you.”

“Oh.” A flat sound. And flattening. And still she stared at him, not helping him at all.

“Talia, what I’m trying to get at”—and what ached so much to say—“is that I don’t intend to marry you myself—”

“I heard you the first time.”

“And, Talia, that I will be, as is my right as your guardian”—
and doubtless my deepest regret
—“looking for…a suitable husband for you.”

Husband.
Talia felt her heart rattle and drop into her knees, a weight so heavy it loosened them, caught a gasp in her throat.

“A husband?” She swallowed to keep her voice steady, to keep from crying out, chiding herself for her girlish hopes that anything could possibly be different. That she could have possibly hoped for—

Him. This large man, taking up so much of the air and the light, his dark hair made darker by the shadows, his gaze fixed on her, the muscles in his jaw flexing.

“I should have said earlier, Talia, that I—”

“That you what, Alex? That you were planning all along to sell me to the highest bidder?”

He squared his shoulders and took a wide-spaced stance of authority, once again the cold-
hearted warrior. “It means that I have the right and the privilege to dispose of your wardship as I see fit.”

“Rights and privileges that ought to be mine, except that I’m a woman.” He looked so coldly determined, not at all like a man who would rescue Gemma’s bunny.

“The king granted me your wardship—a great honor, Talia, one that I had no intention of refusing.” He briefly shifted his fierce gaze from her face and it returned, resolved. “But I never planned to remain here.”

“So I’m on the marriage block again.” Back to dismantling her castle.

“Talia—” He reached for her hand, but she whirled away from him, putting a chair between them.

“Well, why wouldn’t I be? Not to worry. I’m quite used to it, my lord guardian.”

That’s what she got for trusting the man. She was back where she started, with only one future, one possible path to follow.

“It’s a matter of business, Talia. That’s all. The sum of my intentions. I have plans that cannot possibly—have never—included Carrisford.”

“Well, good. A man needs plans, doesn’t he?” Would he be shocked to discover that she had plans, too? Already in the works, and invisible to him because he’d never have believed her capable of such a grand scheme.

“Carrisford is too small for me.”

“It’s not the Tower of London, my lord, but it certainly isn’t a damp-rotted old hill fort.” Good enough for her father, and her grandfather.

For me.

“I was born without a title, Talia. I have gained none in all these years.”

“Ah. Power and glory. I understand how important and arousing they can be to men.”

“You can’t possibly.”

“Why is that, my lord? Because I’m not a man? Because it’s my lot to sit here helplessly in my tower and pray that whoever does have power over me will make honorable and constructive decisions for me? It hasn’t happened yet. Can you imagine how powerless that makes
me
feel?”

“Talia, it’s critical that a man wrest power wherever and however he can.” He was very close to her, another source of heat opposite the brazier. “I’ve spent my entire life moving toward one goal, and that is to acquire the right holdings and the right titles and the right heiress for my—”

“For your bed?” She nodded at him, pleased to see his distress, because it made it so much easier to dismiss him. “You see, my lord, I do understand. When do you mean to arrange this…marriage of mine?”

“As soon as possible.”

“Of course.”

“Talia—”

“Nay, you needn’t explain any further, Alex. My fault. I had no right to expect better from you.” She raised her hand against his chest to stop him, though the heat of him burned through to her marrow. “Men have their needs, and women pay dearly for them, my lord, one way or another.”

“This is not how I ever meant it to be between us, Talia.” His mouth took on a sternness, his manner a thankful distance.

“If you’re going to sell me to the next man who comes along, then we obviously have only a business relationship between us. Lord to lady. Merchant to chattel.”

“Don’t be cynical, madam.”

“You’ve left me little alternative.” She tugged her bed drape closed. “Now, my lord, if you have no other pronouncements, please leave me. I’m tired and sick to my soul, and there’s so much more to be done before another winter sets in. I don’t want to lose anyone else this year.”

“Talia, please—”

“Good night, my lord.”

She knew he stood behind her, unmoving. “I made no long-term promises to you.”

“Except to protect my family.” She turned back to him, pressing harder on him than she had ever dared of another man. “And if you mean a word of that promise, you will allow me an opinion about who this husband will be, the man I will wed and bed.”

The corners of his mouth paled, tightened the muscles in his jaw. “An opinion?”

“Out of respect for me. And my sisters. And the children who will come of this marriage.”

He became a wall of flint, chilly and impassable. “You’ll marry who I say, madam. When I say. And without comment.”

She wanted to tell him that none of his blustering mattered anymore, because in a very short time he wasn’t going to have a castle to sell.

“I’ll say whatever I please, Alex. You’ve just lost the right to ask civility of me.”

“You’ll damn well do what I tell you, Talia. The king is coming, and I’ll not have you—”

“The king?” She drew back from him, breathless at this announcement. “What do you mean, he’s ‘coming’?” Kings brought war and rebellion.

“The earl of Chester is promising to restore the king’s lands in the north. Stephen doesn’t trust him, wants to see for himself.”

“So he’s coming here to Carrisford? Why?”

She didn’t trust Alex’s shrug. A visit from a king must mean the world to him, to his bloody plans.

“We’re on the way to where he’s going.”

A dark and desperate fact of war that chilled her to the bone. “He’ll bring his army, won’t he?”

She felt his gaze on her, testing her temper when it was already set hard against him. “He’s a king, Talia. And kings don’t travel lightly.”

How foolish to have allowed herself to be lulled into thinking that Alex would marry her and solve all her problems. It would be business only between them from now on.

“How do we provision such a horde, Alex? We haven’t enough stores for winter.”

He sighed, lifted his palm toward her. “Talia—”

“And what if this self-serving Chester is only laying a trap for the king? And suddenly we have a full-scale war sweeping through the valley? What then?”

“Then we’ll defend against it.”

“We’re not ready.”

“We will be, madam.”

She caught a laugh in her throat, fearing that it would make her sound mad.

Your castle will have fallen into the sea by then, my lord guardian.

“Well, my lord…
Alex
. I’m weary to the marrow, so if you’ve said all that you need to say, then I wish you a good night. And the best of dreams.”

He stood there for a very long time, staring at her, studying her face, his mouth working on some other pronouncement—one that would surely leave her aching.