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“Let me guess.” He shook his head. “My trusting friend went straight off to his ‘cousin’ Julian to propose a treaty of peace.” At her nod, he brought his fist down in frustration on the hard-packed floor. “By all that’s holy, from the time we were boys, Marcus was always so honest and upright he could scarcely conceive of villainy in others. The fool…”
“Marcus is no fool!”
“No? I’d wager a storehouse full of gold that it was during this visit that Julian took Count Gullible prisoner,” he added caustically.
Furious, Arianne scrambled up on her knees to face him. “Marcus couldn’t possibly have known that Julian would engage in such treachery!” she cried, her face hot and flushed. Though she might rail at Marcus for not allowing her to sit in on his strategy sessions and meetings with the nobles, she would brook no criticism of him from another. “Marcus went to Dinadan in peace! He did take a company of knights with him, a small contingent, but they were overpowered. How was he to guess that Julian would stoop to attacking him when his mission was to reach an accord?”
Nicholas leaned back, gazing at her lazily, his hands braced on the floor behind him. He studied the proud, delicate curve of her chin, the fire-flash of her eyes, the rich, bright hair that poured around her shoulders like molten copper. She was exquisite. So brave, so intense, and so innocent of the harsh realities of the world. Or at least she had been, he reminded himself, until Marcus had been thrown into prison.
“Julian is a knave, Arianne,” he told her coolly, “a scoundrel. As evil a creature as ever walked this earth. I suspected it when we were children together, but by the time of my twentieth year, I knew it to be true.” He paused, and as the firelight flickered across his face, Arianne saw once again the bitterness there, etched deep into his very soul. She saw anger, too, an icy, dangerous anger that made her shiver despite the blaze of the fire.
“What did he do to you?” The words spilled out before she could catch them.
Nicholas turned his head and stared at her.
“I can see that there is somesomething beyond what he has done since your father’s death…something beyond taking Marcus prisoner,” she went on quickly. She searched his face. “He did something to you. Long ago.”
“Are you a witch?” he asked abruptly, his eyes steady upon her.
“No. But I can see things sometimes—things that are beneath the surface. I can sense anger, fear, and, often, falsehoods.” She shrugged. “It is just something that is clear to me even when others are blind. If that be witchcraft, then I am a witch. I have no powers other than those. But with you, I sense…here.”
Without thinking, she reached out and touched her fingers to his chest. A jolt of heat zigzagged through her. She nearly gasped. She could have sworn that he felt it, too, that lightning current racing between them. The hard muscles of his chest tensed beneath his tunic, and her fingers trembled and fell away, burning.
She stared helpless into his eyes. They had turned the color of scorched silver.
“Go on,” he said tautly, gripping her hand before she could pull away.
“There is a pain,” she whispered, not knowing from where this sudden insight came but knowing it was the truth, “a pain deep inside you that goes beyond all else.”
He dropped her hand and pushed himself to his feet. Abruptly he turned away and picked up a stick to poke savagely at the fire. “Let us just say it was a sad day for Dinadan when my father wed the Countess Viviane. The son she bore him could well be the devil’s spawn.”
The fire blazed under his prodding. Still gripping the stick, he glanced back at her, looking suddenly so fierce, so deadly, that she recoiled in fear even though it was clear that his anger was not directed at her.
“Tell me what happened after Marcus was taken prisoner.”
“Before news had even reached us, before any warning could be given, Julian’s troops attacked Galeron. The castle was stormed, the village was burned, children were slaughtered.”
It was the first time she had spoken of it since that awful, unforgettable day when she’d seen horrors she hoped never to see again. The smoke, the blood, the running and screaming people, her own dear old Gerta slain in the melee.
She swallowed back tears and sobs, staring down at her hands.
Suddenly Nicholas knelt and threw the stick aside. He captured both of her small hands in his own large ones. His fingers were calloused and heavily scarred. They were very strong, very warm. Arianne felt the warmth of life flowing between them as he gripped her hands in his. When she lifted her eyes to his face, she read ironclad determination there.
“He will pay, Arianne. Never fear, he will pay.”
She nodded, that small flicker of hope again flaring within her.
The heat had left his eyes; they were now cool and calm and gray as the sea. She felt a quiver as she gazed into their keen, appraising depths. What had this man seen during all those years when he was estranged from his father? What had he done? His eyes held a grimness that was not there in his youth.
Strain showed, too, around the corners of his hard, sensuous mouth. He was weary, she realized suddenly, as he slowly let go of her hands. Every bit as exhausted as she. Yet his tone remained steady and alert.
“Tell me, Arianne, how did you escape? Surely Julian’s men wanted you too. The Lady of Galeron would be a war prize indeed.”
She nodded, folding her hands. To be considered a trophy of war irked her, but it was a fact of her station. She had not grown up in a castle without learning her worth as a noblewoman.
“His men did try to capture me, but I escaped.” She took a breath and told him of how she had fled with two of her ladies through the secret tunnel that led beneath the bailey, how they had been attacked and her ladies captured just outside the walls, how Marcus’s knights had come to her aid, wrenching her out of the arms of the huge soldier who had grabbed her up onto his destrier. She told him of how, surrounded by knights, she’d been riding pell-mell for the shelter of Sir Elven’s manor, when they’d been overtaken by another company of enemy soldiers. In the ensuing battle, she had killed one of them herself before Felix, Marcus’s captain, had shouted an order for her to flee.
“He was right, of course. I wanted to stay and help in the fight, but I knew, as Felix did, that if I were captured, it would only strengthen Julian that much more. So I rode as far and as fast as I could. The manor house had fallen—it was burning as I went past. Some peasants took me in at nightfall and hid me in their cottage. They gave me clothes, food. They offered to hide me until help came. I stayed for a few days, but it was dangerous for them. Julian’s men were searching the countryside for me. I insisted on leaving and slowly, carefully, made my way to Dinadan.”