Nicola Cornick - Lord Greville's Captive

Simon’s dark gaze was murderous now. There was so much repressed violence in him that she shivered to see it.

‘Enough!’ he said. He moderated his tone almost at once. ‘You have said quite enough, madam. You may think that you know me, but you know nothing at all.’ He straightened. ‘You may disabuse yourself of the notion that I am letting you go through chivalry, or for pity, or generosity or any other virtuous reason.’ There was a self-mocking tone to his voice now. ‘I know nothing of such emotions now, if I ever did. The simple fact is that I do not need a hostage. I can take Grafton without.’

Anne’s breath caught at the callousness of his words. ‘You speak so easily of destroying my home,’ she whispered. ‘You are about to lay waste to my people’s livelihood and I cannot stop you.’

For a moment she thought she saw something behind the unrelenting hardness of Simon’s expression, some element of pity or sorrow or regret. She had already put out a hand to him in appeal when he spoke, and his tone was unyielding.

‘No, you cannot stop me,’ he said, ‘but I admire you for trying to do so.’ His tone hardened still further, cold as the winter night. ‘Now go.’

Anne laid the sword down on the table, very gently, and started to gather up her cloak. Her throat was thick with tears. She did not believe his cruel words, but she knew that she could never make him admit to the truth. She knew he cared desperately for Henry. She had seen it in his face in the very first moments when she had told him his brother lived, when he could not repress the blaze of joy and relief and thankfulness. But there was too much at stake here for either of them to admit anything to the other. It was too dangerous to admit even to the slightest affinity in this conflict where one stood for the King and the other for the people.

And yet she could feel Simon watching her with those dark, dark eyes and his look made the awareness shiver along her skin. She could feel that look in every fibre of her being. It stripped away all her defences. Against all odds and against all sense there was still something between them, something shockingly powerful. There should not be. There could not be, for they were sworn enemies, and a part of her hated him whilst she was equally, frighteningly, as drawn to him as she had been four years before.

She slipped the cloak about her shoulders. Simon was standing by the door and she had to pass him to go out. She was desperate to be gone, yet when she got to the door she hesitated, and looked up into his face. Suddenly she did not know what to say to him.

Abruptly he caught her hands in his. The intensity of his gaze burned her. ‘You are betrothed to my sworn enemy,’ he said softly. ‘I am about to lay waste to your home and your people’s livelihood. If I say that I am sorry, you will only think me a liar, but believe that I will do what I may to lighten the blow that falls on Grafton.’

Anne trembled. She made an involuntary movement and his grip tightened.

‘I understand,’ she said. A faint, bitter smile touched her lips. ‘As you have said before, this is war. In a war people will get hurt.’

‘Be careful tomorrow,’ Simon said. He looked down briefly at their joined hands, then up into her face again. ‘Even if you do not trust me, take this advice. When the attack begins, take only those closest to you and lock yourself in the safest place in the house. I will send word to you as soon as I can.’

Anne stared up at him. ‘You really do believe that you will win?’ she whispered.

‘Yes.’

Anne bit her lip. ‘I fear for you,’ she said.

The words were out before she had time to consider them and she heard his swift intake of breath. Standing there so close to him, feeling the warmth of his touch and the tension latent in his body, it was impossible to keep any secrets one from the other. Simon’s dark eyes were brilliant with desire now and Anne knew that he wanted to drag her into his arms and kiss her until she was senseless. She wanted it too. Her whole body ached to meet his passion with her own, kindle fire with fire. She did not know why, she did not understand how this could happen when a part of her hated him for what he was about to do, but it was almost irresistible.

Simon took a harsh breath. ‘If I should find Gerard Malvoisier before he finds me tomorrow,’ he said roughly, ‘do you want me to save his life for you?’

There was a pause, full of feeling, and then the hatred smashed through Anne in a wave of emotion. All evening she had managed to conceal from Simon her utter contempt for Gerard Malvoisier. A loyalty to the King’s cause had been the only thing that had held her silent. Malvoisier was her ally, but now it was not possible to deceive Simon any longer. Nor did she want to.

‘No,’ she said, and her voice shook with feeling. ‘I would not wish you to spare Gerard Malvoisier on my account, Lord Greville. He has taken everything that I care for and destroyed it or desecrated it beyond redemption.’ She could feel herself trembling with hatred and passion, and knew Simon must be able to feel it too. ‘He has taken my father’s life, my home, the loyalty of my people…’ She tilted her face up and met the intensity of Simon’s gaze. ‘If you wish to show your gratitude to me, Lord Greville, then you will take his life. Kill him for me.’

There was a moment when Simon stared down into her eyes and then he pulled her to him with one violent motion. His hand tangled in her hair and his mouth was hard on hers and Anne yielded to him with a tiny gasp and parted her lips beneath his. The fire in him woke her senses to life. Anne’s head spun with sudden passion—and with recognition. The years fell away and she was seventeen again, and back in the walled garden at Grafton, feeling the sun beating down and the hardness of Simon’s body against hers as he held her close.

But this was no youthful kiss now. It held all the fierce demand and desire of a man for a woman and it evoked an instinctive response in her. She yielded helplessly, conscious of nothing but the touch and the taste of him, the feel of his hands on her body, the scent of his skin so surprisingly and achingly familiar to her. Her knees weakened and Simon scooped her up with an arm about her waist and took two strides across to the truckle bed.

He laid her on the hard pallet and followed her down, taking her mouth with his again, fierce in his demand and his need. Anne responded with no reservations. All the anger and the fear and the desperation that she had felt that evening fused into one huge explosion of passion. She knew she ought to hate him, but she did not. She wanted the safety and promise their past had offered them. What she felt for him was dangerously akin to love.

She could feel Simon’s hands shaking as he dealt with the hooks and bows and loosened her bodice. He bent to kiss the side of her neck as he slid his hand within her shift. A lock of his dark hair brushed her cheek and Anne trembled with need. In the mixture of fire and candlelight his expression was hard, concentrated, desire distilled.

He brushed her shift aside and bent to cup her breast, taking one rosy nipple in his mouth. Anne moaned and writhed beneath his touch, running her fingers into his hair and holding his head down against the hot damp skin of her breast. She was naked to the waist now, her bodice undone, her hair spilling across the pallet.

She felt Simon’s hand on her thigh beneath the heavy weight of her skirts. The air was cold against her skin. Then he eased back for a moment. Anne felt the loss and reached blindly for him, her mind still a swirl of confusion and desire. He was not there. She felt cold and lonely.

She opened her eyes. Simon was sitting on the edge of the pallet bed, his hands braced beside him as though he was forcibly preventing himself from taking her in his arms again. He was breathing very fast and very harshly. And although his face was half-turned from her, Anne could see the same shock that she felt inside reflected in his expression.

The truth hit her then like a blast of winter air. Simon Greville had been about to take her, there in his quarters, like a soldier tumbling a camp whore in a ditch. And she had been about to let him do it. Simon Greville, her sworn enemy. It had happened so fast and so irresistibly. Now that sanity was returning to her she could not understand it at all.

The colour flooded her face; she made an inarticulate sound of shock and struggled to get to her feet, her hands shaking as she swiftly rearranged her bodice and dragged the fur-lined cloak about her. She held it wrapped tight to her like armour. She wanted to run away.

Simon had also got to his feet.

‘Anne,’ he said, calling her by her name only for the first time that night. His voice was husky with passion and she shivered to hear it. She thought that he looked as dazed as she, and she knew that in another second he would gather her up in his arms and carry her to the tumbled truckle bed and make love to her. He was as much deceived by the ghosts of the past as she.

She shook her head sharply. ‘Do not. Do not say anything.’ She huddled deeper within the cloak. She felt desperately cold and alone.

‘I made a mistake,’ she said. ‘I thought we could go back, but we cannot.’

They looked at one another and Anne could see in his eyes that both of them were poignantly aware that they would never meet like this again. Perhaps they might never meet again at all, if Gerard Malvoisier won the day. Simon might die in the heat and pain of a bloody battle. Anne knew she could perish along with her people if the Manor was taken. This sudden and unexpected sweetness between the two of them, this dangerous temptation, was a moment out of time. She told herself fiercely that it was the product of memory only and the result of the heat and passion of the night before battle.

‘Take care,’ she said, ‘on the morrow.’

She opened the door and the snow swirled in for a moment and she stepped outside. It was cold out in the night and she wanted to run back to the warmth and safety of that room, and, treacherously, into Simon’s arms. But she knew that when they met again—if they met—she would be Anne of Grafton and Simon Greville would be the victor. Everything would be different. There would be bitter hostility between them. Once more he would be her enemy.

‘Madam!’ Edwina met Anne as soon as she reached the top of the tower steps and was about to open the door of her chamber. In the torchlight the woman’s face was strained. ‘General Malvoisier is here,’ she said meaningfully. ‘He has been asking for you.’

Anne paused a moment as she felt the customary surge of aversion sweep through her body. Trust Malvoisier to have come looking for her on the one occasion when she had managed to slip away from his vigilance. Had he guessed that she had stolen out of the house and gone to visit his enemy? She shuddered at the thought and tried to calm herself. Closing her eyes briefly, she put her hand against the cold wood and pushed open the door of the chamber.

‘Thank you, Edwina.’

There were so few seconds in which to prepare herself. Gerard Malvoisier was standing with his back to the fire, feet spread apart, hands clasped behind him. He was a large and fleshy man who commanded the room through his height and girth, and because he had the air of one who knows himself superior to other mortals. His bloodshot eyes were narrowed in his reddened face where the veins mottled the skin. Years of good living had stolen much of his youth and vigour, and now Anne could smell the alcohol on his breath, even across the room. She felt that probing gaze search her face and drew her cloak a little closer. Her lips still stung with Simon Greville’s kisses and her skin was still alive to his touch. Would Malvoisier be able to read any of that in her face? Thank God she had paused inside the tower door to rearrange her hair and make sure her gown was secure. For a moment she allowed herself to remember Simon’s hands on her body and his lips against hers, and she suppressed a shiver at the same time as she suppressed her wayward thoughts. Time enough to think on that when the current danger was past. Squaring her shoulders, she slipped off the cloak and turned to greet Malvoisier with every assumption of ease.