Marek (The Knights of Stonebridge Book 1) (16 page)

Marek stroked her arm. How could he comfort her? Well he understood her need to be reunited with her child.

But loathed he was to let her go.

“What do you mean ‘locked away’? Is that what happens to forsaken children in your time?”

She stopped crying as she seemed to contemplate his question. Finally she said, “In a way, I guess. But it’s not that.”

She remained still for a time. Marek continued to caress her arm, letting his fingers move in slow circles across her skin as he held her.

“Vanesa’s father is dead,” she declared, “because she killed him.”

Marek stiffened. He squeezed her arm, held her tight as he considered this odd divulgence. “How old did you say she is?”

“Ten.”

So young. “It was an accident?”

She shook her head. “She stabbed him with a butcher’s knife while he slept.”

She said it as a matter fact, as though she announced that it had begun to rain. Marek did not move. It was difficult for him to imagine a little girl, creeping up on her father while he slept, stabbing him to death.

She laughed, a short, bitter laugh. “Shocking, isn’t it?”

“It is, indeed.”

“He – raped her.” She clenched the bed clothes in her fists. “He raped his own daughter,
my
little girl. And I did nothing to stop it. How could I not have known what he was doing to her? Why didn’t I
know
?”

She broke down again, sobbing in earnest.

Marek wrapped both arms around her. “Shh.” He understood her need to cry. He wanted to cry himself. Cry – and beat the life from the bloody lewdster with his bare hands. What a brave child this Vanesa must be. Jaw clenched, he took deep breaths, trying to control his own anger.

“When I woke up,” she continued, “there was blood everywhere. She had stabbed him right in the chest. And not just once, but again and again. I was horrified. She never said anything, just kept stabbing that knife into him.” She wiped at the wetness on her cheeks. “I don’t know if he ever realized what was happening. He was already dead by the time I got her away and called – for help.”

Kitty shuddered in his arms. “Vanesa hasn’t spoken since. They’re trying to put her in an institution, a hospital for insane people, with special doctors. But she’s not insane.” The conviction in her voice was only tempered by the catch in her breath.

“Of course she is not. She is a very brave little girl.”

“No one should have to be that brave. I should have protected her.”

“You did not know.”

“But I should have. Don’t you see? I failed her. I can’t desert her now.”

He
did
see. The realization made him almost as sad as the tragedy that had befallen Vanesa. He felt such a need to protect the little girl he had never met, he imagined
he
would risk time travel to save her.

“I have to go back. I
have
to.”

Marek’s heart shattered.

***

The morning sun streamed in through the beveled glass, striking Kitty’s face. She moaned and gripped her pounding forehead even before opening her eyes.

Was the bed on fire again?

She raised one eyelid enough to peer out into the room. Thick tapestries hung on the wall across from her. Stone mullions separated the window embrasures that let in blinding sunlight. No, it had not been a dream.

Nor, apparently, was she dead.

She felt like she should be. Her head pounded. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth like it had been glued there.

Did I drink that much?
She thought back to last night. She remembered the party. She had never been to a birthday party like that. There had been no streamers, no balloons. No presents or candles to blow out. But there had been wondrous music. Not enough food to be called a feast, but, after her initial fear that the cook would poison her, she had eaten until she was stuffed. That mead tasted delicious. It had certainly hit her pretty hard.

Then Marek had carried her up the stairs. He’d taken her clothes off. He’d made her come like a freight train, then held her while she sobbed that horrible story about Jake and Vanesa, held her until she fell asleep.

Ignored his own release.

What a man!

Oh, God. She’d told him she loved him. What must he think?

Kitty threw back the covers. Big mistake. The sudden movement caused her heart to pound, which made her head feel like someone stood next to her clobbering her temple with a hammer.

She eased herself up, sat on the edge of the bed for a few minutes until the room stopped spinning. When she was finally able to stand up, she padded across the fresh rushes to her own room, pulled a smock from her closet. She had just slipped her arms into it when someone knocked on the door.

Just as she crossed the threshold into Marek’s part of the room, the widow Kitty had rescued from the village entered with a tray. Her stomach jumped, whether from anticipation or revulsion she couldn’t tell. But there was a goblet of something that was bound to be wet. Please don’t let it be wine.

“Milady. Something to relieve your – ailment – should you have need.” She crossed to the hearth table and set down the tray.

Kitty eased herself down onto the stool, propped her head on one hand. She lifted the goblet, sniffed. Tea! Well, sort of. Some kind of herbs steeped in water, but close enough. She closed her eyes and took a sip. Delicious. And cold. She downed the contents without taking a breath.

“Thank you,” she said. The woman turned to leave. “Wait, what is your name? How’re things going?”

The woman turned back, fixed her with a most confused look.

Kitty stuffed her mouth with a piece of bread slathered with sweet cream. “How are you?” She spoke around the food.

“Ah,” she curtsied quickly. “Very well, milady. M’ name’s Annika.”

“Everyone’s treating you – well, Annika?”

“Yes, milady. Very well.”

“And your son. Gadrin, right?”

The gratitude on the woman’s face as she nodded made Kitty smile. “He is on the training field with the lord as we speak. I so feared the boy would be lost without his father. Gadrin had not time yet to learn a trade. We have no money or belongings to speak of.” She wrung her hands, stared down at the floor. “You have saved us, milady.”

At least she had helped someone.

Kitty waved away the tribute. “No big-" She caught herself. She was going to have to be more careful if she was to convince everyone she was no witch. "It was the least I could do.” She yawned, rubbed her eyes. They burned, felt like they were filled with sand. “I must have slept too much. I just want to go back to bed.” She yawned again.

“I should return. That cook has much work planned for me today.”

Kitty mumbled a goodbye as the woman left. With her head still propped on the table, she closed her eyes. She had just gotten up. How could she still be so sleepy?

That mead had really done a number on her. From now on, she was sticking to tequila.
If
she ever drank alcohol again.

Pushing away the food tray, Kitty climbed to her feet, stumbled back to the bed. She fell into the covers, eyes closed, imagining Marek on the training field, brandishing a sword, shirtless, his torso glistening with sweat…

When she woke again, it must have been late afternoon. The morning’s sunlight no longer streamed in through the windows but left remnants of pink splashed across the clouds. Her limbs felt heavier than they had the first time she’d gotten up.

She sat up with a start.

Someone had been in the room.

While she slept.

The rushes had been strewn all about. She got up and went to her chamber. The wardrobe door stood open as did the lid to her trunk. The contents had been shoved around and most had been carelessly tossed onto the floor. Grabbing her clothes Marek had removed the night before, she searched every fold.

The medallion was gone.

Kitty dressed as quickly as she could, before tearing out the door and down the stairs.

The hall was empty. The hour was late so it was no surprise that few people were roaming about inside. She burst out into the bailey to find it buzzing with activity. She caught sight of few people she actually knew, but that
cook
was the one she wanted.

Kitty nearly tripped running down the stairs, but she caught herself, hurried across the yard to the kitchen. Someone had drugged her tea. And she had a good idea who.

Garnetta’s startled expression when Kitty burst into the kitchen confirmed her suspicion. Kitty gave the woman a look she hoped expressed all the anger she felt. “You poisoned my tea.”

“If only I was brave enough to poison you. Maybe then I could finally have Lord Marek to myself.” She grabbed a clay pitcher and heaved it at Kitty’s head.

Kitty ducked. Ignoring the pitcher’s crash behind her, she fairly roared when she attacked. The cook screamed, tried to get away. But Kitty had her backed against a wall.

She held her forearm against the cook’s throat and frisked her with her free hand. “Where is it?”

The woman tried to push her off, but Kitty was stronger. “Get off. I don’t have anything.”

Kitty searched the folds of her smock, the waistband, the bodice. Suddenly she stopped. “Where is it?” They stood glaring at each other.

After a long moment, Garnetta curled her lip in hateful smirk. “The priest ransacked your room, not me.” Kitty released her. Garnetta busied herself straightening her clothes, avoiding Kitty’s glare.

Father Jacob? Why did he want it? There was nothing about it that could prove her a witch. “Why does he want the medallion?”

“So he can be with Katherine, of course. He is under some delusion that you are not the lord’s wife. That her soul and yours have been switched somehow.”

“He knows what to do?”

“He says ‘tis simple enough. In addition to that amulet, you need all four elements. Earth, water, air, fire. You simply have to contain the first three and step into the fire. Easy.”

“But Katherine was killed when she tried. So there must be something more.”

Garnetta shrugged. “Mayhap the good father will die as well. What do I care as long as I get Lord Stone.” She glared at Kitty. “I almost had him. Until your miraculous recovery.” She smirked. “His feelings for you have changed. I could see that last night. He wouldn’t let you more than two feet away from him. And not just to keep you from sneaking off with some young lover, as his wife was known to do. He
wanted
you by him. He loves you.”

Garnetta’s revelation warmed Kitty to the tips of her toes. But she pushed the thought aside. She could not be distracted, not now, when success was at hand.

“When he carried you up those stairs, I wanted to pull your hair out.” She cocked her mouth to one side in a kind of lopsided grin. “But I have to admit, it was very romantic.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Marek trudged up the steps, clinging to the walls of the stairwell, weary after a day of training with his men. His ego was still more than a little bruised from his skirmish with Kitty. He wanted to prove, to himself at least, that his battle tactics were superior. Still, he could not deny the benefits of the moves she had used against him.

As he pushed the solar door open, he paused, slowed by the sound of her voice. He crept across the rushes, smiling as he neared Bria’s chamber, Kitty’s voice growing clearer.

“Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.”

Bria giggled.

“Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in.”

Marek’s smile broadened. He leaned against the stones, eyes closed. Her voice slid over him, enfolding him in the warmth of emotion she so readily bestowed upon his child.

“He huffed and he puffed and he puffed and he huffed. But the stone walls of the third little pig’s house stood strong.”

Marek had always wanted a strong family for Bria. Here it was, within his grasp.

“So the Big, Bad Wolf climbed onto the roof and slid down the chimney.”

The Big, Bad Wolf.
He thought of Vanesa. Could he offer Kitty’s child any less love and devotion than Kitty had shown his? Vanesa’s own father had been the baddest wolf of all. How could a man do such a thing to any child? Much less his own? He knew such things occurred, but it had never touched him so personally. All his paternal instincts ignited. He clenched his fists, pounded them silently into the stones at his back.

“When he fell into the cooking pot, the three little pigs slammed the lid down. They had wolf stew for days and lived happily ever after.”

Vanesa had certainly gotten rid of
her
big, bad wolf. What must it have cost her? He opened his eyes and stepped away from the wall when he heard her coming. He did not want her to come around the corner and find him dropping eaves.

Too late.

“Were you listening to the story?”

He cleared his throat. “I fear I missed the beginning. Mayhap you can tell it again?”

Kitty smiled, a seductive lift at the corners of her lips that sent jolts of heat to his loins. “I have better stories I can tell you,” she said.

Kitty sauntered over to where he stood. She continued to smile at him from beneath her lashes as she pushed up to her toes and pressed her hips against him. Even though he stood head and shoulders over her, he could feel the heat of her sex against his thighs.

He put one hand behind her neck, bent down, and pulled her lips to his. His hand tangled in the thick waves of her dark hair while the other gathered her dress into a fist. How he loved the taste of her! His heart drummed in his chest. Never had a woman made him feel thus. It was wondrous and fearsome at the same time.

Alas, ‘twas more than the hardness of his cock that surprised him. Or the constant urge to have his hands on her. Each time he looked at her, he felt an excitement within him that he had not experienced since he was a small boy at Christ’s Mass. A smile from her caused his heart to melt, or at other times, soar right out of his body.

Reluctantly, he pulled away, looked down into her eyes. The reflecting candlelight revealed specks of gold within the deep brown. He glanced from one to the other. If only he could see inside her soul. Did she feel likewise at
his
presence?

He would take her right here, among the rushes, but for Bria’s soft breathing mere steps away. He scooped Kitty’s tiny hand into his and all but dragged her to her chamber. He sat on the edge of her bed, knees wide to accommodate his swollen cock. She reached to remove his boots, but he stayed her with a word. “Nay.” His voice had taken on a thickness that made speech worrisome. He swallowed hard. “Let me see you undress.”

He watched, fascinated, as that same seductive grin spread across her face. Christ, she was lovely. It amazed him that she could look so much like Katherine yet be so much more beautiful.

And beautiful she was, inside and out.

For now, though, it was the outside he was most excited about. He watched with the anticipation of a lad awaiting the unveiling of  his first sword as she lifted the skirt of her smock exposing petite ankles and shapely calves. He could not take his eyes off the hem of the coarse material as it rose with aching slowness up her legs revealing curvaceous thighs, thick with long, slender muscles that evidenced the strength to grasp a man about the waist and hold him captive.

Marek longed to be imprisoned there.

His lips parted as more and more of her bronze skin was uncovered. He caught the scent of her nearly naked woman parts. His cock twitched. She was as aroused as he was. The thought intensified his own desire.

Teasingly, she dropped the skirt before showing him her goods. His disappointment only lasted a moment before she turned her back to him and repeated the tantalizing, nay – tortuous – revelation of her backside. Praise God, she did not stop this time, but pulled the smock higher and higher until the bottom half of her rounded cheeks were exposed. She wiggled her hips, making her buttocks dance, torturing him to the point of pain.

He reached into the waist band of his trousers and adjusted his raging cock. It took all his strength of will to remain seated on the bed when what he wanted was to  press her to yon wall and bury himself deep inside her from behind. He caught his breath when she reached around and grasped her arse in both hands.

He nearly came off the bed when she tilted her hips up enough that he could see the woman’s dew clinging to the swollen lips that peeked back at him. She slipped one finger inside herself, blocking his view for a moment, then slid it along the seam of her cheeks, leaving a glistening trail he determined to follow later with his tongue. He gripped his hands into tight fists, his restraint waning, as he watched her swirl it around the tiny, puckered hole hidden between them, the mysterious opening that was surely forbidden.

Was it not?

Before he could ponder that fantasy longer, she crossed her arms in front, gripped the hem of her smock and pulled the entire garment over her head, tossing it to the floor and drawing him to his feet.

She wore nothing beneath.

He was across the room in three strides, unlacing his chausses as he went. He knelt behind her, gripping her thighs in both hands. She leaned forward as he skimmed his tongue along the trail she had left for him. Her tangy flavor burst upon it, inciting a craving for more. He let his rough, calloused hands slide up the front of her body as he rose to his feet. Her voluptuous cheeks grazed his chest, his stomach until he stood behind her with his hard cock wedged between the rounded globes, her heavy breasts cupped in his hands.

Stroking one down her body, his fingers skimming the subtle ridges of her stomach, he touched her hardened clit. She groaned and ground her arse against him. His cock surged painfully. He swirled his fingers around her swollen lips. God, she was already so wet for him.

He could wait no longer.

He drove into her with one mighty stroke.

He stilled, his cock buried to the hilt inside her. Her warmth, the swollen lips of her woman parts, all conspired to make him spill his seed too soon. He did not want this to end. How could he make her stay?

When he had his raging
tarse
under control, he withdrew, slowly, tortuously. She gripped him with the muscles of her
quim
but could not hold him. He teased her with the bulbous head, stretching her opening and preparing her once again for the entire length of him. When he slid his cock home, she responded with a moan of such intense pleasure, he could no longer hold himself in check. He pumped into her with the fierceness of a man possessed. He had never felt anything like it.

Kitty arched her back and rocked back against him, her hands splayed against the rough stones. Each thrust of his cock drove her up to her toes as she adjusted to accommodate him.

Marek growled at the sensation of her naked body against his. When she came, she cried out his name, clinching him in powerful spasms that sent him over the edge. He fairly roared his own pleasure as release took him. He squeezed her so tightly he was vaguely aware that he could crush her in his embrace.

He held her thus, both of them spent, heaving great breaths. Her wet
quim
twitched around him, drawing the last drop of seed from his cock. She lifted her head and turned her face back towards him.

He caught her lips with his and kissed her with all the emotion he had ever felt. His heart nearly ripped asunder with the sentiment of having her in his life and the fear that she would be taken away.

Reluctantly, he pulled away, turning her in his arms and folding her into his embrace. They stood thus entwined until a shudder rocked her. Withdrawing, he pulled an
overslop
from a hook next to the door frame and draped the mantle over her shoulders.

“Come. I have something to show you.”

***

Donning his chausses, he reached behind her cabinet and released the latch that opened a panel behind where she stood. She jumped, startled at the sudden, unexpected movement. Marek smiled as he stepped around her. He took her hand and pulled her along after him.

They climbed a staircase hidden behind the secret panel. She said nothing but followed him eagerly. He could feel the heat of her against his back, whether from anxiety within the dark stairwell or a desire to be closer to him, he knew not. All that mattered was that he felt her close.

They reached the top and stepped out onto the roof of the stairwell. A high wall surrounded the square landing. Marek guided her to one of the crenellations. She gasped as she peered through the wall opening at the countryside surrounding the castle grounds and the village clearly discernible in the distance. Night had fallen, but the waxing moon cast such light the landscape was as visible as if it were still twilight.

“I often come here to escape the demands of my post, or the prying eyes of those who would see me fail.”

“I hid on the roof of the keep many times while you were gone.” She moved around the perimeter of the landing before stopping at the side overlooking the river. “It was there I sat when you arrived home,” she said, pointing to a spot several feet below them. “I could see you coming from miles away.”

Marek stepped behind her. He held her waist as she lay over the wall between two crenellations, taller even than he, and peered over the edge to the river below. When she slid back until her feet touched stone, she looked up at him, wonder etching her features.

“It’s as tall as any high-rise,” she said.

As if that meant something to him. He had to laugh. “Your speech is wondrous strange. It is like a puzzle, or trying to learn another language.”

He gathered her into his arms, held her against him, his chin resting against the top of her head. “You have brought such joy to our house,” he said. “With a mere visit to the sick and wounded you silenced the villagers’ claims of witchery. Never has the food tasted so good. Bria has never known the love of a mother. I sense her attachment to you.”

He held her quietly for a time, gently rocking as he stared over her head down the length of the river to where it disappeared in the distance.

“Could you teach my men to fight?” The words came out in a rush. He was not used to seeking aid from others, determined to be a successful overlord by his own merits. The expression on her face was worth what it had cost him to ask her. “I have never seen combat like that you showed me. Few of my knights have mounts of their own. Those who do can easily come unhorsed in battle. Fighting like that would give them great advantage.

“I’ve never taught anyone how to do anything,” she said.

One arm still cradling her back, Marek spread the lapels of the
overslop
, exposing her breasts. Even without being crammed into the tight-fitting kirtle, they stood up well.

“You could use me,” he said, using his most seductive voice. He trailed one finger from the tender skin at her throat down to the softness he had recently freed from her clothing. “Together, we can show them how ‘tis done.”

Her breath came in ragged gasps. Her fingers closed around his. She brought them to her lips, kissing them one by one.

Marek pushed the garment down over her shoulders with his other hand, exposing her from the waist up. Her skin broke out in gooseflesh at the sudden breeze of night. Pushing her back onto the crenellated opening she had explored earlier, his lips followed the trail he had recently blazed across her skin.

Marek felt her moan deep in her chest. She wrapped one leg around him, reached beneath and cupped his ass in her hands. He pressed himself against her but not enough to cause her discomfort from the stones at her back. He suckled first one nipple, then the other, the peaks hard, rigid against his tongue.

Pulling away, Marek sat her more comfortably on the stone beneath her. He stood between her thighs, combed her hair back with his fingers, rested his palms against her cheeks. “I would have you stay with me. Always.”