Once Upon a Castle - Jill Gregory [42]
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
He cursed under his breath in exasperation and grasped her arm. He hauled her to the low stool near the fire and pushed her roughly down upon it. “Stay there. And drink this.”
The flask he pulled from his pocket was silver, she noted, glaring at it and at him. There were rich carvings upon it and small encrusted jewels. A contrast to his peasant clothes.
“If you argue with me, Lady Arianne, I will pour this wine down your throat. The entire flask. Now drink!”
Arianne drank. She did not doubt that he would carry out his threat. Everything about him suggested barely leashed violence and deep, cold anger. The truth was, it did feel good to sit here before the fire. She was frozen to the bone. As she stretched her hands toward the flames, she felt the warmth returning to her limbs, flowing through her in lovely golden waves. And the wine…the wine burned her throat with its own sweet fire.
Spirits always made her drowsy, and she didn’t want to be drowsy. She needed to be alert, to keep her eye on Nicholas lest he vanish again before she could wrest from him a promise to help her. She needed to be on guard against any soldiers who might find the cottage and seek to question her. She needed to plan, to think, to come up with a new course of action—and quickly.
Yet, as the wine and the fire warmed her, a relaxed weariness stole over her, despite her best efforts to resist it.
She yawned. She couldn’t help it, it just happened, a small, delicate, catlike yawn, but Nicholas saw it and scowled.
“You look half dead.”
“More flattery,” she mumbled.
“You need rest.”
“No. I need…” Another yawn, quickly stifled. “…to talk to you.”
“You always were troublesome as a gnat, even as a child, Arianne. I never gave it much thought, but I suppose it stands to reason you’d turn into a stubborn, troublesome woman.” He stripped off his heavy cloak and draped it over her shoulders, then took back the flask still clutched in her fingers.
He tilted it up and enjoyed a long drink.
“If you wish to talk, then we’ll talk,” he told her curtly. “I have a great many questions, and I consider it a stroke of good fortune that I came upon you tonight—because you can answer them for me.”
“If I do, will you help me free Marcus?”
Ice glinted in his eyes. “What in hell’s name do you think I am doing here, Arianne? Julian’s men will have my head on a platter if they find me. Yet I’m here. You ought to be clever enough to figure out why.”
“I’ll have your word on it before I speak.”
Mockery curled his lip. “Since when does the word of a banished scoundrel mean anything?” he asked sardonically.
“Marcus believes in you,” she replied stiffly. “I suppose I must do the same.”
He turned away from her. He began to pace back and forth around the small confines of the cottage, looking far too large and strong for such a feeble dwelling. At length he turned back to her, and suddenly Arianne felt a vise tightening around her heart as she saw his face.
Bitterness filled it, a resigned and hopeless bitterness imprinted so clearly upon the strong, handsome features that it tore at her soul.
“You have my word,” he told her grimly. “My solemn oath. I will free Marcus from the castle dungeon or die. Is that good enough for you, Lady Arianne?”
She nodded, too stunned by the bleak emotions that she read in him to speak.
“Then we must act quickly. I know only bits and pieces. Tell me all that has happened in Dinadan and Galeron since my father’s death.” His tone was heavy. “By tomorrow we must devise a plan and begin at once, for if my information is correct, Marcus is to be hanged in three days’ time.”
“That is correct,” she whispered.
He heard the catch in her voice and fixed those implacable gray eyes upon her. “By all that is holy, my girl, it will not happen.”
There was no tenderness in his tone, no concern or kindness. Only flint. The hard, fine-edged flint of a man not to be swayed from his purpose.
“Lord Nicholas, thank you.” She spoke formally, suddenly overcome with relief,