‘I feel sick.’
Eva peered into Alice’s face. The child’s skin was pinched, drawn, but at the same time, flushed with a leaden colour. She placed her palm against Alice’s forehead. Her skin was hot. Very hot.
‘You lie down, Alice; I will fetch some water.’ Straightening up, Eva removed the furs from around the child, leaving a single sheet. Alice had a fever, not unusual in someone of her age, but she needed to be cooler, before her temperature raged out of control. She would go down to the kitchens, fetch some water from the well. ‘Don’t wake your mother,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll be back very soon.’
Seizing a blanket from her own bed, Eva flung it around her shoulders. She took the candle from the bedside table, touching the wick to the flame within the charcoal brazier, watching it flare. The chapel bell had tolled midnight as she had lain awake with her troubled thoughts; everyone would be tucked up in bed now, especially on such a chill, snowy night. Katherine would have given the guest chambers to the visiting knights, chambers on the other side of the bailey, a lengthy distance away. And thank goodness for that, she thought with relief, as she pulled the door open.
As she stepped forward, her toes collided with a large bulk lying across the threshold.
Eva stopped. Fear scythed through her, her muscles tensing. She slithered her foot back along the floorboards in a gradual movement, eyes running over the shadowy outline below her. One of Gilbert’s soldiers lay curled across the threshold, surcoat rumpled around brawny thighs, a creased leather belt around his hips. His broad sturdy back was curled towards her.
Breath snared in her chest. She hesitated, poised in the door frame. Frustration pulsed through her; Lord Gilbert obviously believed that Katherine and her children would try to slip away in the middle of the night. He was taking no chances, placing this guard across their door. The man was definitely asleep; she could hear his deep, steady breathing. Could she step over him without waking him up? She had no wish to be seen in her nightgown, hair uncovered and in braids, but Alice’s temperature worried her. To dress appropriately would waste more time; she needed to fetch water for the child now.
Lifting her bare foot, she stepped over the sleeping body, careful, hesitant, her nightgown filming over the man’s tunic, gauzy hem rustling across the expanse of red wool. With both feet on the other side of him, she paused, glancing down to check that he still slept.
Eyes of granite watched her, twinkling in the candle flame.
Lord Bruin, the knight who had brought her out from the forest. Eva recognised him instantly. ‘Not you again!’ she blurted out, exasperated. Anger pulsed through her, blazing, irresponsible; lifting her skirts, she kicked out towards his stomach with her good foot, a childish gesture, instinctive and wilful. She never reached her target. A lean hand snaked out, grabbing her ankle, powerful fingers grinding into her delicate bones.
‘You’ve quite a temper on you, maid,’ Bruin said softly, pressing her foot back to the ground, releasing her. He sat up, running his fingers through his vigorous bronze curls, hitching one shoulder against the door frame. He had shaved; the lines of his square-cut jaw were revealed, the raw slanting contours of his cheekbones. His sculptured features held a sensual beauty which drew her gaze; her heart jolted treacherously. Bruin folded thick, muscled arms across his chest. ‘You would do well to keep it in check or it will bring you trouble.’
‘It’s the way you are treating us that’s making me annoyed,’ she said, bridling at his words. The memory of his thumb on her ankle taunted her: a heated imprint, tantalising. She clutched at the blanket across her chest, a self-conscious gesture, heart bumping erratically. Hot wax dripped from the candle across her knuckles. The pain bit into her skin, then subsided, the wax cooling swiftly. ‘Can’t you leave us alone for one moment?’
‘And let you run away with your mistress? No doubt she has told you the news?’ Again, that strange lilt to his voice that tickled along her veins, entrancing them. Excitement stranded through her; she stamped hard on the feeling with grim determination. Who was this stranger with dangerous, flinty eyes who had intruded so brutally on her quiet hidden life? A man who reminded her constantly of her previous tormentor. She wanted him out, away. Gone.
‘Aye, she has.’ Eva rolled her feet against the chill wooden floorboards; she had forgotten her slippers. A draught whistling along the corridor chased beneath the hem of her nightgown. Beneath the new bandage, her wound throbbed, pain radiating across her shin. ‘But there was no need to post a guard across our door. She has no intention of going anywhere.’
‘Why wouldn’t she after what she’s just been told?’ Drawing one leg up, Bruin rested his hand on his knee. Moonlight streamed through the bedchamber door, the limpid rays highlighting his ridged and calloused palm, the corded sinew winding across the top of his fingers.
She glared at him archly. Was he trying to trap her into saying something she shouldn’t? His words surprised her; it seemed inconceivable that a man such as this, a man that spoke of war and battles, should understand Katherine’s predicament.
‘Because it’s impossible,’ Eva replied, her voice subdued. Her velvet lashes fluttered down, masking her eyes. She shook her head, glossy plaits rippling like wide satin ribbons. ‘Lady Katherine knows she has no choice; the King is her uncle and she must do his bidding.’ She chanted out the words, the correct answer for the circumstances.
‘But you would run in her position, wouldn’t you? You would take that chance.’
Jerking her head up, Eva frowned. His speech sounded too personal, as if he were prising apart the thoughts in her head. She wanted to rebuke him for his intimacy, but she held her tongue, repressing the words she wanted to say, scared of saying too much. She watched a gob of wax trail down the candle, the guttering flame. ‘What does it matter what I think, what I would do? It’s different for me, I’m only the servant.’ She threw him a false, brittle smile.
‘Are you?’
A hollowness besieged her heart, belly plummeting. During her whole time living with Katherine, not one person in the castle had guessed her true identity. She kept a close guard on herself, careful and measured at all times, moving through her days at the castle like a ghost, a wraith of her former self, unnoticed. A half-life. But this man, with his silver glance that seemed to see her thoughts, forced himself beneath her well-constructed defences, made her forget who she was supposed to be.
‘Of course I am!’ she ground out, snapping the blanket more securely around her shoulders. Fear skittered through her veins.
‘Then where are you going?’
‘Lady Katherine’s youngest child has a fever; I must fetch water for her. Her temperature is too high. And you are holding me up.’
Bruin sprang to his feet, the swiftness of the movement shocking her, his shoulders filling the doorway. ‘I’ll come with you.’ The black and red lions emblazoned upon his tunic gleamed out like a threat, intimidating.
‘There’s no need,’ Eva responded haughtily, tipping her head back to stare into the angular lines of his face. Without a beard, he seemed more dangerous somehow, the honed angles of his face exposed. He towered over her in the moon-soaked shadows. Eva considered herself to be quite tall for a woman, but annoyingly, her head scarcely topped his shoulder. ‘Besides, Lady Katherine and her children might slip away if you come with me, so you’d better stay here.’
Bruin heard the note of sarcasm in her voice, and chuckled. ‘What, and have you slip away instead?’
Her eyes widened, long, curving lashes kicking up towards the perfect arch of her brows. ‘I would never leave Lady Katherine! Why do you think I would do such a thing?’
Bruin inclined