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She’d managed to creep downstairs on the final night of his visit the last time he’d come to Galeron. He’d been twenty then and she only ten. She waited until old Gerta was snoring soundly, then in her nightgown she slipped through the solar, and down the winding back staircase to the alcove behind the great hall. There, hiding behind a velvet curtain, she gazed eagerly out at the dancers.
She saw him dancing with one of her mother’s lovely young cousins. Marta the fair, with her pale, gleaming locks and sideways smiles, seemed to enchant him. As Arianne watched from her hiding place, her palms cold and damp, Nicholas led Marta toward the very alcove where she had hidden herself.
She dashed around a corner in the nick of time and peeked out. He pulled Marta to him and kissed her in a way that Arianne in all the years since that night had never been able to forget.
“You’re cold.” He spoke to her roughly now, interrupting her thoughts. “Go and warm yourself before the fire. Then we must talk.”
“What makes you think I have anything to say to you, my lord?” Arianne spit out angrily. Then she saw the surprise that darkened those gray eyes that missed nothing. They narrowed, and his lip curled.
“Insolent child, I’ve just saved you from a fate worse than any other, unless I mistook the intent of your friend back there in the stables. I thought you might wish to thank me by providing me with some useful information.”
“I am not a child.” Arianne surprised him again by focusing on the first portion of his speech. She saw his eyebrows go up, then his features quickly took on an iron impassivity, and she could read nothing more there but a hint of harshness and of anger kept rigidly in check.
“Very well, my lady,” he responded coolly, his tone flirting with mockery. She remembered with a shock that he had no idea who she was. No doubt from her dull brown homespun gown and thin, plain cloak he thought her only what she had been pretending all these months to be: a simple tavern wench who had hidden from the soldiers out of fear, who was no doubt eager to go home to her own family and bed.
“So you are not a child, but you are behaving like one.” He advanced on her and gripped her by the arms so firmly that she gasped.
“Now, I have done you a good turn, my girl. It is incumbent upon you to do one for me.” He scowled suddenly, noting how her delicate cheeks were still red from the cold, how thoroughly she was shivering.
“You’ll sit before the fire and have a sip of wine. When you have answered my questions—and it shall not take long—you will be free to go. But,” he continued, his eyes piercing her in warning, “you will tell no one of this place. Or that you have seen me. Do not speak of it. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly clear, my lord Nicholas.” She spoke slowly, clearly, almost sweetly. But anger flashed in her eyes as he stared down at her in shock upon hearing his name.
“As clear as your own cowardice in having stayed away for lo these many months while your people were enslaved!” she rushed on, her voice throbbing now with growing fury. “As clear as your indifference to the suffering of one you professed to love as a brother!”
His grip tightened. The look he gave her could have sliced through a stone. “What nonsense is this?”
“Nonsense? I speak the truth. Can you deny it—Nicholas?”
He let her go. His expression turned so cold, so darkly dangerous, that Arianne involuntarily stepped back a pace.
“I don’t deny who I am,” he muttered. “But, by God, it’s high time you did me the honor of gracing me withyourname, my lady—and with how you know of me.”
Quickly, with shaking fingers, she reached up and yanked the strings of her cloak. As the hood fell back and the cloak slid from her shoulders, she stared fixedly into Nicholas’s swarthy face.
“I am Arianne of Galeron,” she said with contempt. “I am the one who summoned you to the aid of your friend—my brother. Behold, my lord. At last, when it is nearly too late, you have come.”
For a moment there was dead silence in the cottage, except for the hiss and crackle of the logs. The sound of the moaning wind soughing through the trees of the Great Forest faintly reached her ears, as if from far, far away. Fingers of heat, of rich amber light, flickered across the faces of the tall, dark man and the slender, flame-haired woman who confronted one another with anger and distrust in that small space lit by fire and shadow.
Nicholas spoke first. “You…are Arianne? That little mouse who scurried after Marcus and me…that pest who would not cease annoying us?”
He looked so amazed that she flushed. Deep rose color burned her cheeks, turning them nearly the hue of her lips.
“How you flatter me, my lord. Take care you don’t turn my head.”
He smiled suddenly, a smile that broke through the grimness of his face and momentarily softened his features. “If it’s flattery you want, Arianne, I can give it to you. Heartily and sincerely.” His gaze contemplated her lush, sweet mouth, then shifted lower to appraise the slender form and feminine curves revealed by her simple gown. “You’ve grown into a lovely woman now, an entrancing woman…”
She stepped forward and slapped him. “I don’t want your damned flattery!”
Dark fury blazed in his eyes. He caught her wrist, and Arianne felt mortal fear flood through her. She’d gone too far. With a man like this, the type of man Nicholas of Dinadan had clearly become, one did not risk anger. It was not only his size and strength that were daunting, it was something in his bearing, in the swift, sure way he moved, in the coldness that lurked behind those fascinating eyes. He was not a man to cross. A dangerous man, much different from the laughing boy who had kissed Marta in the alcove, fenced with Marcus in the courtyard, and ridden her father’s prize destrier as if born in the saddle.
She wondered suddenly if the rumors about him were true, that he had become a warrior in the years of his banishment, a mercenary who spent his life fighting on behalf of those who would pay him for his service. Looking into that ruthless and icy gaze, she knew in a flash of insight that it was true. He was a man who thought nothing of killing another, who lived for hunting and war.
How many times had Marcus warned her that she needed to learn to control her temper? Somehow she could not. Especially with this man, who had once claimed to be her brother’s friend, then had callously left him to rot all this time in the hellhole of Castle Doom.
She had expected so much more from him. Based on her early memories, her foolish, girlish imaginings, she had envisioned him a hero, someone bound to aid her brother, as well as his own people, freeing them from the tyrant who had taken his father’s place. But he had stayed away. Damn him, he was not worthy of Marcus’s love or respect. Or of hers.
“Let me go,” she commanded, fighting back the tears that threatened. “You have no right…”