Marek (The Knights of Stonebridge Book 1) (5 page)

Aroma from the fresh-baked bread made Kitty’s mouth water. When Bria ripped off a hunk of bread from the loaf and handed it to her, Kitty barely sniffed it before stuffing it right into her mouth. She gulped it down and tore off another piece. She was
that
hungry. This time, she forced herself to eat more slowly.

A quick sniff of the cheese assured her it was not too strong, so she nibbled at it as she and Bria finished off the bread. Kitty lifted the goblet to her nose, taking in the fragrance as if she were attending a formal wine-tasting. She turned up her lip at the goblet’s contents. Thick. White. Soured.

“Buttermilk?”

Bria’s eyes widened. A smile lit up her face. She swallowed her food in one gulp and peered inside her own goblet. “Yes!” She turned the goblet up and drained the contents without taking a breath.

Guilt swept Kitty immediately. Who was she to be picky? She sipped the buttermilk. It was cold and not half bad. Still, she would have given anything for a strong cup of coffee. She set the goblet down and gave Bria a hard look.

“Bria, how do you know who I am?”

Bria shook her head, licking the milk from her lip. “I know who you are
not
,” she said.

“How? No one else seems to doubt that I am your mother.”

She shrugged. “I just know that you are not her.” She stuffed more cheese into her tiny mouth. “Where
do
you hail from?”

Kitty wondered just how much she should tell. Bria may seem grown up, but she was still a little girl, and if she was anything like Vanesa, would be hard pressed to keep a secret, a secret that in this time could be dangerous.

She decided to just change the subject. “I have a daughter,” she said. “She’s nine. How old are you?”

“Papa says I shall have my sixth birthday after the next full moon.”

“Don’t you miss your mother?”

Bria shrugged. “I have always missed her.” An expression of sadness crossed her face. But her features almost immediately resumed their happy sparkle. “But I am glad that thou art here. You will be better. This I know.”

Kitty shook her head. “I’m not staying here.”

Bria’s bright expression faded instantly. “You cannot leave. You have only just arrived.”

“My daughter is in danger. She needs me.” The urgency of that understatement threatened to overwhelm Kitty. She ached at the disappointment on Bria’s face, but she could not be worried about this little girl who had never known her mother, a mother who never cared for her and was now gone. But she had one parent who seemed to care for nothing else. Bria would have to be satisfied with that.

She had her own child to worry about. Vanesa had committed a heinous act and without Kitty, she would undoubtedly be admitted to the Chestnut Lodge asylum. Vanesa had been such a happy child. Inquisitive to a fault. She wanted to know everything about everything. Now she was little more than a shell. Her ten-year-old spirit had been broken.

Kitty had failed to protect her once. She would not fail again. She
had
to get back, and she had to do it soon. God only knew what was happening at home. Had she simply disappeared? Were people searching for her? Was her daughter being locked away even now?

The situation seemed helpless. What could she do? How was she to return? How could this possibly have happened? She had so little knowledge of physics or the paranormal. She was going to have to do some serious investigating if she was to figure this out.

She noticed that the women working in the kitchen had overcome their shyness and found more and more reason to work near them. She took Bria’s hand and leaned over to whisper to her.

“Come show me around.”

***

They spent the next few hours wandering around the castle grounds. Not that there was much to see. Kitty discovered that Marek’s great-great-grandfather had been part of the Norman invasion. Soon after, he built this fortress, known at the time as Stowbridge, to protect William’s lands. Marek's father, Walter Stone, hated Stowbridge. Plague had nearly wiped out the place a few generations back. Walter claimed the place was cursed, especially after Marek's older brother,
a seventh boy
, drowned in the river. He had refused to live here. When Marek inherited it, he refortified the bridge, renaming the manor Stonebridge, and began work on a new hall.

The keep built by Marek's ancestor was the wooden structure she’d seen being torn down when they arrived. It was nearly falling down anyway. Only half as large as the newly built stone keep, men were demolishing it with little effort. There was one pile of reusable wood, another of scraps.

The stone keep was beautiful. Kitty shielded her eyes as she stood at its base and let her gaze travel up the side. The stone was the color of pale honey. She had at first thought it must be five or six stories high, if not more. The structure seemed so massive. But she knew now that there were only three floors, the first partially underground.

They were still outside in the bailey when Marek and his brothers returned. Bryn pulled the missing cow behind his horse. Marek dismounted and strode over to them.

“What is amiss?”

It was Bria who answered him. “Nothing, Papa. I was helping Mother learn the layout of the new keep.”

Marek lifted her into his arms and snuggled his face against her neck.

Kitty lowered her eyes, bristling at his show of affection.

Bria giggled. “Cease, Papa.” She pushed against him, wrinkling her nose. “You stink.”

She had no reason to doubt this man’s intentions, yet doubt him she did. She would never again be caught with her guard down.

“I have been thief-hunting, bobbin. Oftentimes one must roll around in the muck to subdue the prey,” he teased. He put her back down. “Tell Sarah I am in need of a bath.”

Bria ran off towards the keep.

When they were alone, Marek studied her. “I would have you explain your interest in the child.”

Kitty knew enough about this family that his skepticism of any affection she might show his daughter did not come as a surprise. “The events of these past days have left me feeling…different, I guess.” She hoped she sounded convincing.

He cocked his head to one side and narrowed his eyes her. “Your speech is most strange,” he said. When she made no response, he turned and called to Bryn, still holding the cow. “Put the cow in the byre. Give her something to eat.” He headed up the steps to the castle entrance. “And set a guard,” he called over his shoulder.

Kitty hiked up her heavy skirt and hurried up the steps after him as best she could. She followed close enough to hear him grumble. “A guard for a cow.”

“Wait.” She grabbed his arm.

He flinched at her touch and stopped instantly, glaring down at her hand as if it were some huge spider that had fallen from the ceiling. He looked back at her with such a mixed expression of surprise and loathing, she released him, tucking her hands into the folds of her gown. “Wh-where are you going?”

He did not answer but continued inside the dark castle. He barely took a breath as he climbed the stairs. Kitty struggled after passing the first landing. She shouldn’t be so out of breath. She could run thirteen miles without taking a break, yet here a flight of stairs proved almost too much of a challenge. Maybe it was some kind of time-travel jet lag. What she wouldn’t give for an elevator.

Marek did not wait for her as he continued to the top floor, the solar. When she finally made it there herself, she found him sitting on the edge of his big bed, trying unsuccessfully to pull off one of his boots. She stood there in the doorway to catch her breath. Kitty recognized Sarah from breakfast. She stood next to what looked like the bottom half of a large wine barrel, pouring in bucket after bucket of steaming water as several other women handed them to her. How had they gotten here so fast?

When the buckets were all empty, the women left. Sarah stopped briefly to breathe life into the embers in the fireplace, then made her own exit.

Marek let his foot drop to the floor. “Attend me, wife,” he snapped, pointing at his still boot-clad foot.

Kitty bristled. “
Attend
you?
You?
Who have had nothing nice to say to me since I got here? You want me to wait on you?”

“For certes I do not want you to wait. I want you to do it
now
. Why would I want you to wait?”

“Oh, I get it.” She smirked at him.

“You will if you do not come here this instant and help me undress.”

Kitty rolled her eyes and bit the inside of her cheek.
Could he be any more infuriating?
He lifted one foot as she stepped before him with a huff. Grabbing the heel of his boot with one hand and the toe with the other, she worked it off, then dropped it to the floor.

Marek lifted his other foot to her.

“Tell me something,” she said. He lifted his brows but said nothing. “If you hate me so much, why do you continue to save my life, protect me as you did yesterday and this morning?

“We have ever despised, one as much as the other. Nothing has changed. Except…” he shrugged. “Mayhap I hate you more that you have teased me with death. For a trio of days I believed myself rid of you at last. Alas, you torment me with a scream from the funeral pyre. Can you explain that?”

Kitty let the other boot drop to the floor. Without thinking, she reached up for her medallion, suddenly missing the familiar sensation of holding it in her hand. “Don’t change the subject,” she said, irritated. “Why didn’t you just leave me up there? Let me die?”

Marek glared at her. Then he stood and lifted his arms, obviously expecting her to continue to undress him. She didn’t argue, but tugged at the laces down one side of the leather vest he wore over his shirt with a vengeance. “I would have allowed neither stranger nor enemy to die such a death.” He turned so she could unlace the other side. “You are my wife. I am obligated to protect you.” He pulled both garments over his head.

Kitty gasped. Not even at Oats Gym had she seen such a man. Marek’s torso fairly rippled with muscle. He literally bulged. A light sprinkling of hair, as dark as the wavy locks that fell below his shoulders, covered his chest. Not too much. A silver crucifix hung from a cord and nestled against it. A jagged scar was visible beneath his ribs on one side, drawing her eyes to the most chiseled six-pack Kitty had ever seen.

She licked her lips, suddenly feeling like she would die of thirst.

He gripped her chin, pulled her face up until their eyes met. “What game do you play, wife?”

Kitty swallowed against her dry throat and shook her head, pulling away from his grasp. She berated herself, realizing her unease did not stem from fear but something else, something more animalistic.

Marek jerked the laces free at the waist of his chausses, tugged them off and, naked, padded across to the tub. Stepping over the side, he sank into the steaming water. With a sigh, he closed his eyes, resting his head back against the rim.

The look of ecstasy on his face made Kitty want to rip off her own clothes and jump in with him. She realized she’d never known lust until that moment. She tried to deny it, but the pulse at her core could not be ignored, nor could the moisture that pooled between her thighs. Slowly she tiptoed over until she stood next to the tub, gazing down at him.

He did not open his eyes, but spoke so quietly he must have known she stood next to him. “If you have had a change of heart towards Bria, I am pleased. I would not deny her the affections of her mother. I have often told you not to toy with me, now I demand the same consideration of her. I would not have her disappointed in any way.”

She nodded vaguely, her gaze riveted to the water line just beneath his chest.

When she did not answer, he looked up at her. “Wife,” he snapped. Kitty jumped, having been caught gawking at his nudity, barely hidden beneath the water. “Continue to stare at me thus and you’ll find yourself possessed of me for the first time in years.”

Kitty could think of nothing more pleasant that being ‘possessed’ of this man.

He settled himself once again, but continued to look up at her. “I have not concerned myself with your whoring for some time. But I would like nothing more than for Bria to know the love of a happy family. You are a mistress of deceit. If you can make her believe she has that, I would be…grateful.” His expression softened.

Kitty fairly melted. He loved that child. All he wanted was for her to be happy. She knew in that moment that
this
man would never allow harm to come to his daughter, much less harm her himself. He wasn’t like Jake. She reached out, traced the tip of her finger along the scar that trailed into his wet hair.

The touch was like an electric shock. The downy hairs on the back of her neck prickled. A shiver racked her whole body.

He must have felt it, too. Marek grabbed her wrist and, before she could say anything to stop him, pulled her over the side and into his lap. Water sloshed onto the floor.

Her first thought, that he was ruining Bria’s favorite gown, evaporated as he pulled her against his chest, crushing his lips to hers.