Lord Greville's Captive

‘You are contemptible,’ she said.

‘And you are helpless.’ He looked rather amused.

Anne glared. ‘That is not correct, of course,’ she said. ‘I have plenty of advantages. I know the lie of the land of Grafton, I know its weaknesses and I know Malvoisier’s plans. I could even give you safe passage into the Manor were I minded to do so.’

Simon’s gaze had narrowed on her face. ‘But you would not do that,’ he said. ‘You would never betray your cause.’

‘No,’ Anne agreed bitterly. ‘Everything I have done tonight has been to save Grafton. I do not sell my honour cheap.’

Simon smiled ironically. ‘Touché, my lady.’ He made a slight gesture. ‘But since you are not prepared to sell either your principles or yourself, you have nothing with which to barter.’

‘I do not intend to barter,’ Anne said. ‘I intend to make you let me go.’

Simon folded his arms. He was smiling. It was all the extra incentive Anne needed.

‘How will you achieve that?’ he enquired.

In response Anne grabbed the hilt of the sword. It came free of the scabbard with a satisfying hiss of metal. She spun around. Simon had already started to move towards her, but he was too late. As he took the final step she brought the tip of the blade up to rest against his throat like a lover’s caress. Simon stopped abruptly.

‘Like this,’ Anne said breathlessly.

The smile in Simon’s eyes deepened into something like admiration.

‘I cannot believe,’ he said, ‘that I was so careless.’

‘Well,’ Anne said. ‘You were.’

‘Please be careful,’ Simon said. ‘I sharpened the sword myself, this very night. It is very dangerous.’

‘Good,’ Anne said. She knew that he was using her own tactics now, keeping her talking to try and distract her. It was hideously dangerous to point a sword at a trained soldier, particularly one as experienced as Simon Greville. One second’s loss of concentration and he would disarm her. He would be quick and ruthless. She kept her gaze fixed on the sword’s point and did not look into his eyes.

‘I have your life to barter with now, Lord Greville,’ she said. ‘Mine for yours. It is a fair exchange. Step away from the door. Slowly.’

Simon did as she ordered. Anne started to edge towards the door, still keeping the murderous weapon levelled at him. She did not want to have to kill him, but she did know exactly how to use it. The Earl of Grafton had never had a son, but he had certainly taught his daughter how to defend herself.

‘Put up the blade,’ Simon said. He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘I will let you go.’

Anne laughed. ‘You will let me go? You think that I believe you, after all that you have done? Nor do I need your permission to leave, my lord. I am the one holding the sword.’

Simon nodded. ‘I acknowledge that. But you would not get five yards without my men capturing you. I demand parley. Put up the sword and declare a truce.’

Anne met his eyes briefly. It was a mistake. There was such a look of ruthless determination in them that she almost quailed. She dropped her gaze once more to the shining blade.

‘Malvoisier did not respect the rules of parley,’ she said. ‘Why should you—or I?’

Simon did not move. ‘You are not Malvoisier and neither am I, Lady Anne. Put up the sword and talk to me.’

There were rules of engagement. He knew it. She knew it. The fact that Gerard Malvoisier had no honour should not, Anne knew, bring her down to his level. She did not want to stay a moment longer and speak with Simon Greville. She did not trust him. But she had a code of honour and he had appealed to it.

‘If I agree to parley and then you betray me,’ she said, ‘I will kill you.’

Simon nodded. He was not smiling now, but the respect was still in his eyes. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is understood.’

Anne retreated until her back was against the door and then she lowered the sword until the tip was resting on the ground. She turned it thoughtfully in her hands, examining the balance of it. It had a long blade and a beautifully curved hilt.

‘It is a fine weapon,’ she said. ‘A cavalryman’s sword.’

‘It was my father’s.’ Simon rubbed his brow. ‘He gave me his sword and now I use it to fight for his enemy.’

Anne’s heart contracted to hear the pain in his voice. It would be easy to accuse Simon Greville of having no integrity and selling out the Royalist cause of his father, yet she knew that countless men had had to make the decision to put their honour and principles before their family. They were fighting for what they believed to be right. The King had raised an army against his own Parliament and even she, for all her allegiance, could see that there were those who felt that Charles had betrayed his people.

‘I am sorry,’ she said softly.

Simon shifted slightly. ‘It may be sentimental in me, but I would like to take that sword back from you, Lady Anne.’

Anne nodded. ‘I imagine that you would.’

Simon’s hand moved towards the pocket of his coat and Anne suddenly remembered that he had put her knife there. She raised the sword point to his chest and he stopped.

‘Not so fast, Lord Greville.’

‘I beg your pardon.’ Simon said. ‘I merely wanted to give you back your knife in case you hold it of similar worth.’

Anne felt the treacherous tears sting her eyes. She valued each and every thing that her father had ever given her, material or otherwise, and as he grew steadily weaker so the desperation in her grew steadily more acute. Soon he would be dead and she would have nothing of him left to hold on to but the example of his allegiance to the King and his loyalty to the people of Grafton. She had come to Simon’s quarters that night because she knew it was what her father would have done. He would have put the welfare of his people first, before pride or military conquest.

She blinked back the weak tears. ‘Put the knife on the table,’ she said, a little huskily. ‘Do it slowly. Do not come any closer.’

‘I will not make that mistake,’ Simon agreed.

Anne watched as he slipped a hand into his pocket and extracted the dagger, placing it carefully on the table between their two empty wine glasses. When he let his hands fall to his side and stepped back, she let out the breath she had been holding.

‘Good. So…’ She made her tone a match for his earlier. ‘You asked for parley. What would you like to discuss?’

Simon rubbed his brow. ‘There is nothing to discuss,’ he said. ‘I promised that I would not play you false. You are free to go.’

Once again the hope flared in Anne’s heart, but this time she was more wary.

‘What are you saying?’ she whispered.

Simon gestured fiercely towards the door. ‘I am telling you to leave. Go back to Grafton Manor. You came here to negotiate and I will not accept your terms. I have changed my mind about exchanging you for Henry. It will not serve. So there is nothing more to say.’

Anne did not move immediately. She felt bemused by this sudden change of heart. If Simon were to let her go now, what was to become of Henry? Malvoisier would still have him hostage and Simon would have nothing with which to bargain.

‘But what of your brother?’ she asked.

Simon laughed and there was a bitter edge to it. ‘I am gambling, Lady Anne,’ he said. ‘I am risking my brother’s life so that I can take Grafton Manor. The house must fall to Parliament. To negotiate with hostages now will only delay the inevitable battle.’

Anne shook her head, bewildered. ‘But if Malvoisier should kill Henry…’

Simon shifted uncomfortably. ‘Malvoisier will reason that a live hostage is worth more to him than a dead man,’ he said. ‘He will want to keep Henry safe in case he needs to barter to save his own miserable neck.’ He turned away with a dismissive gesture, but not before Anne had seen the flash of genuine pain in his eyes and knew that he was not as indifferent as he claimed. He was merely hoping against hope that his words were true.

‘This is not so easy for you as you pretend,’ she accused. ‘You know you are taking a desperate chance!’

Simon turned on her, his mouth twisted wryly. ‘Aye, I know it! And if Henry dies because of it, I will have years of grief in which to regret my decision.’

Anne looked at him steadily. She sensed that his deliberate harshness was a defence to keep her at arm’s length. He did not want her sympathy—or her thanks. He wanted nothing that threatened to bring them closer, threatened to make him feel.

‘You care deeply for your brother,’ she said. ‘Aye, and for your father too. I believe that you are letting me go because you do not wish my father to die alone and uncomforted. You respect him. And you know what it is to be estranged from your family and to lose all that you hold dear.’

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.

Chapter Three

‘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.

‘Good evening, sir. In what way may I assist you?’

Anne was always formal with Sir Gerard Malvoisier. It was one of the many ways that she kept him at arm’s length and held her fragile defences together against the threat of his presence. She saw him frown with displeasure as he took in her tone.

‘You may tell me where you have been for a start, madam.’ His voice was brusque. ‘Your chamber women did not appear to know where you had gone.’

Over his shoulder, Anne saw Edwina make a slight shrug of apology and spread her hands wide. The other occupants of the room, Anne’s cousin Muna, a slender girl of eighteen, and her devoted servant John Causton, stood mute. Muna’s head was bent and her eyes on the ground. Anne knew that her cousin hated Malvoisier as much as she did herself, but that she had the sense to hide it behind a show of dumb deference. As for John, every line of his body seethed with dislike. Malvoisier lashed out at him often, goading him until Anne knew not how John resisted retaliating. Somehow he kept quiet. When Malvoisier was about they all played their parts.

‘I have been in the church,’ she lied coolly, ‘praying for a just outcome on the morrow.’

She could not be sure if Malvoisier believed her. There was an unconscionable amount of snow on her cloak to be accounted for on the short journey across the courtyard to the church. Malvoisier took a step towards her. It was clear that he was drunk and pugnacious, spoiling for a fight.

‘And what would be a just outcome, Lady Anne?’

Anne opened her eyes innocently. ‘Why, that is in God’s hands, sir. I trust in him.’

Malvoisier made a noise of disgust. He had no time for divine intervention. ‘We shall prevail tomorrow. After all, we hold Sir Henry Greville and will show that cur of a brother of his what he must do to get his flesh and blood back.’

Anne felt Muna make a slight move of protest, quickly stilled. The girl had been nursing Henry Greville herself and had fallen victim to his boyish charm very easily. It had been amusing to Anne to see how Muna’s view of Henry had changed so swiftly. One minute her cousin had been speaking of a tiresome boy who had pulled her pigtails as a child, and the next she had a dreamy expression in her eyes and a light spring in her step. It would have been sweet were it not for the unavoidable fact that Henry, like his elder brother, was a Parliamentarian soldier.

Anne had warmed to Henry too, even knowing that he was her enemy. There was something about the vulnerability of an injured man that made it difficult to remember that he held a different allegiance. So she could hardly blame Muna, inexperienced and in the throes of a first love that was all too painfully familiar, for falling in love with a Greville.

Anne cast her cousin a swift, consoling look. Edwina had come forward to stand by her side, stoutly comforting. Muna looked dejected, knowing that in the morning Henry would be paraded from the battlements and either be dead or free within a few hours. Either way, she would never see him again.