Once Upon a Castle - Jill Gregory [58]
“Nicholas!”
“It’s nothing, sweet. It doesn’t matter.”
“But these are whip scars…”
“From when I was imprisoned…by men who did Julian’s bidding.” He was trailing kisses down her throat. “They fell upon me after I was wounded in a battle in Chessperon. They brought me to a dungeon in the far marshy reaches of the land. I was thrown in prison, beaten…”
Her mouth and eyes were wide with horror.
Nicholas brushed a kiss on the top of her nose. He spoke gently. “Ari, don’t think about it.”
“That’s why you weren’t here sooner,” she murmured brokenly, clutching his shoulders.
“I only recently escaped. I came as soon as I got word of your pleas.”
“Nicholas, forgive me, forgive me. I wronged you…my poor dear.”
“Don’t pity me, Arianne.” He caught her against him and cupped a warm, strong hand under her breast. The kisses he pressed against her throat, and then lower, to the swell of her breasts, heated her flesh. “At this moment I am the luckiest of men.”
This time when he claimed her mouth with his, the kiss nearly blocked the horrid images from her mind. It swept through her, wild and possessive and demanding, and she gave herself up to it, but far beneath the sheer ardent passion of the moment, love and need and tenderness burned. As her mouth parted beneath the onslaught of his, as she slipped her arms around him and drew him close, closer still, love poured from her heart, open and free and giving. It wrapped them both in a cloak that no wind or breath of coldness could penetrate.
As they drew together on the pallet, he gave to her his strength, his courage, his love, and she gave tenderness and warmth and healing. They rocked together in that cold, uncertain night, while the candle sputtered and the wind sighed at the window, and destiny waited beyond the walls of the chamber.
7
“We’ve come for the prisoner from Galeron. Archduke Julian commands his presence in the great hall prior to the execution.”
Nicholas and his black-masked companions waited with feet planted apart as the dungeon master fumbled for his key ring. “Does he want the gypsy, too?” the man grunted.
“Both of them.” Nicholas’s hand was on his sword hilt. “Quick, you fool. If you keep the archduke waiting, he’ll see you locked here in their stead!”
Another guard ambled along the corridor of miserable prisoners. His feral eyes inspected the tall, masked knight with suspicion. He halted before Count Marcus’s cell, his back to the bars, and folded his arms across his chest.
“Nees told me at supper last evening he was the one selected to lead the escort for the prisoners today.”
“There’s been a change in plans,” Nicholas snarled, gesturing impatiently at the dungeon master, who had frozen at the other guard’s words. “Now hurry, or the archduke will have our heads. The prisoners—quickly, fool, or by all that is holy…”
At that moment one of Sir Castor’s knights, unnerved by the complication, made a move toward his sword.
“‘Tis a trick!” the second guard shouted suddenly, drawing his own sword.
But he never had a chance to use it, for Marcus’s arm shot through the bars and grabbed him by the throat, and the next instant the Count of Galeron had plunged Arianne’s jeweled dagger into the guard’s neck.
Fighting erupted in a furious tempest as Nicholas and the knights whipped out their swords and a dozen of Julian’s men-at-arms, hearing the cries from the dungeon guards, came swarming down the stairs.
“Kill them! They’re imposters! ‘Tis a trick, a trick!”
The dungeon master slashed his sword at Nicholas, who leaped aside only just in time. He sliced his own blade forward, then leveled it sideways in a wicked thrust that tore through the dungeon master’s chest. Blood poured, the man sank to his knees with a death groan, and then Nicholas had the keys from him.
He tossed them through the bars to Marcus as he advanced upon the next shouting, slashing onslaught of Julian’s men.
Marcus fitted the key in the lock and swung the door wide. An instant later he was out, grabbing up the sword of the guard he’d stabbed and hefting it even as the gypsy shouted