Once Upon a Castle - Jill Gregory [46]
“No, my girl. Don’t say any more. I won’t pretend to mistake your meaning. You’ve gone through much today.”
He helped her to rise, then scooped her cloak from the floor and spread it on the thin straw pallet by the far wall, the only bedding in the cottage.
“Sleep now. By the morrow, I’ll have concocted a plan to free Marcus. So you may rest easy. He will not be in the dungeons much longer.”
“Where will you sleep, my lord?”
“Before the fire, upon the floor.”
“You will scarcely be comfortable!”
“I have slept in far worse places, Ari,” he said with some amusement. He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her gently down on the pallet as if she were a stubborn child resisting her bed. “Sleep,” he said firmly. “In the morning you will tell me just what you thought you were doing with that ruffian in the stable.”
Her limbs seemed to melt as she eased her tired body onto the pallet. In a twinkling she was curled on her side, struggling to keep her eyes open. “I can tell you…now.” She yawned. “I was bribing him to let Marcus go. He is a guard stationed in the dungeon. I’ve been…getting to know him at the inn where I work for some time now…” Another yawn. “And…finally reached the point where it seemed…he was greedy enough to take the risk…. I offered him gold…”
Her voice trailed off.
Staring down at her, Nicholas saw with an odd tightening in his gut that she had fallen asleep in midsentence.
He lifted his own cloak from the floor and carefully draped it across her. Little Ari, Marcus’s small, impossible sister.
The troublesome brat had somehow become an incredibly sumptuous woman. Her beauty was not of the classical wan and ladylike fashion, however. No, it was far more potent and spellbinding than that. This girl with the clear violet eyes and the sensuous kitten’s face, the rich cascade of hair every bit as glorious as fire, had an intoxicating beauty that reached to his core and shook him like an oak in a windstorm. Her body was slim and delicate yet lushly curved. There was grace in the way she moved and elegance in the way she held her head. But her high cheekbones and full, soft lips hinted at a passion running not so far beneath that proper surface, a passion that sprang from her very soul.
Nicholas forced his glance away from her slender form. The last thing he needed now was to get distracted by Marcus’s exquisite and headstrong little sister. In fact, now that she was here, his job was doubly complicated. He had to rescue Marcus, ultimately find a way to overthrow Julian, and all the while keep Arianne safely out of the fray.
He suspected that would not be easy to do. But tomorrow he would send her packing—willingly or in chains, if need be.
Marcus would not be pleased if anything were to happen to her. Neither would I be, Nicholas thought, turning back for one last glance at her. The firelight gilded her creamy skin. One hand was curled beneath a cheek. She looked like a woman but slept the deep, innocent sleep of a child.
Nicholas stalked You’d fall in love with a sow tonight, he told himself, and Marcus’s charmingly delicate sister was anything but that. Still, he had gone a long while without a woman until just recently.
When he’d escaped that place he never wanted to think of again and made his way back toward Dinadan, he’d had a few tavern whores along the way. They provided a quick, animal slaking of his needs. But something inside of him had been left unsatisfied, craving something more.
He raked a hand through his hair and decided that weariness was making him sentimental—and foolish. This was a time to rest and prepare for the battle ahead. Because a battle it would be. He would need all of his wits and his gradually returning strength to rescue Marcus and to retake the castle.
By tomorrow this time, I’ll have breached the castle walls, he vowed as he lowered himself to the floor before the fire. There will be no time for thoughts of a woman, even one as lovely as Arianne—no space in my mind for anything but the fighting and killing and dying that the sunrise will bring.