Besieged and Betrothed

‘So when you said her death wasn’t an accident, you meant...’ Her voice trailed away to a whisper.

‘My father, yes.’ He felt an uncomfortable tightness in his throat. ‘He might not have known what he was doing at the time, but he still did it. It was no accident.’

‘Was he punished?’

‘No.’ The tightness seemed to be strangling him. ‘Nobody with any authority cared enough to punish him and those who did care were too scared. It was just hushed up and forgotten. She was forgotten.’

‘Not by you.’

‘No.’ His voice sounded rough even to his own ears. ‘Never by me.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It was a long time ago.’

‘But something like that never goes away. Is that why you don’t fight women?’

He rubbed a hand across his throat. The tightness was getting worse the longer he talked, but he didn’t want to stop either. Now that he’d started, he actually wanted to keep going. He wanted to tell her everything. How could he feel so close to a woman he’d known for such a short space of time? he wondered. He liked her. He admired her. He even trusted her. Ironically, given how much of the time she’d spent deceiving him, she seemed more real, more herself than any other woman he’d ever met.

‘I won’t raise a hand to any woman in violence. Real or pretend.’

‘Is that the reason you don’t drink wine either?’

He snorted. ‘My father rarely had wine, but he drank everything else he could find. That’s why I don’t drink anything stronger than ale. Usually.’

‘Then I’m sorry I asked you to drink it...’ her cheeks flushed slightly ‘...on that first day.’

‘When you kissed me?’

He hadn’t known he intended to say the words until he said them. He only knew that he didn’t want to pretend that it hadn’t happened any longer. More than that, he wanted to kiss her again, so much that it hurt, as if only the touch of her lips could banish the darkness of his past.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Her voice trembled unconvincingly.

‘Don’t you?’ He lifted a coil of stray hair away from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear, brushing his fingers lightly along the line of her jaw. ‘Then why do I remember this?’

He closed the space between them, grazing her lips with the softest of pressures before pulling away again, surprised by a stirring sensation deep in his chest, as if some long-dormant part of him were waking up again. It wasn’t like him to act on impulse, to do anything without analysing all the risks first, but this time he hadn’t been able to resist. Two decades of learning how to guard his behaviour and every technique had seemed to fail him at once. Now he felt as if his head were spinning. Somehow, the very lightest of kisses felt more powerful than the most passionate embrace.

‘I thought you didn’t remember...’

She must have closed her eyes because she opened them again as she spoke, her breathing fast and unsteady, as if she’d just run up the keep steps.

‘I wasn’t certain until now.’

‘It wasn’t... I didn’t...’

Her voice faltered and he sat perfectly still, waiting for her to say that it had all been a pretence, a means of entrapping him, nothing more. She didn’t. Instead she bit her lower lip, frowning slightly as if she were trying to make sense of something, though the effect was to bring his attention back to her mouth. It looked even more tempting than it had before, moist and pink and apparently not out of bounds either. The thought led to other, more dangerous ideas.

‘Apologies, my lady.’ He shifted uncomfortably, feeling as though they were on perilous ground suddenly. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’

Her lips parted, though she still didn’t speak. Did she want him to kiss her again? His hose became painfully tight at the thought. He would, given the slightest encouragement, though he knew that he shouldn’t. It was wrong. No matter how close he felt to her, or how much he wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her breathless, he was still a low-born blacksmith’s son. Not to mention incapable of feeling anything other than a physical reaction. Even if the stirring sensation in his chest felt like something more—like one of the real emotions he’d banished a long time ago. But no good could come of those—no good, only pain—and he’d felt enough of that to last a lifetime.

He forced himself to smile, knowing that he had to push her away, had to antagonise her again somehow. If he didn’t, then he was in danger of wanting more than just a kiss. Much more. And then he’d be well and truly lost...

‘At least now we’re even. As I recall, you were the one who kissed me first last time.’

The flash of temper was instantaneous. ‘And as I recall, I only did it to trick you!’

She jumped to her feet with a look of something like hurt. Hurt? He felt a pang of guilt. Had he hurt her? He hadn’t intended to do that, had to dig his boots into the rushes to stop from following her as she swept furiously past him and out of the chamber.