rout them would have been well worth the risk of a few losses.”
“Does my brother’s presence in Lincoln trouble you so much?” Wardieu asked. “Does his presence bring back such fond memories?”
“I never complained of him as a lover,” she countered archly, well aware of the effect her words would have. “Does it not trouble you to know there is someone else now who will doubtless compare with your skills, both as a lover and a fighter?”
The finely chiseled nostrils flared and he gathered her roughly against his chest. “You made the same comparison and ended up in my bed, not his.”
“I may have had different grounds on which to base my choice.”
Wardieu’s grip tightened and Nicolaa was not surprised to feel his arousal surging up between them, nor to hear his breath come harsher and faster in his throat.
“Will you tell John of your brother’s return?”
“I may be left with little choice in the matter.”
“He will not be pleased,” she predicted, her own breath forced to rasp through rapidly drying lips. “No doubt he will throw one of his wretched, foaming fits and threaten to burn all of Lincolnwoods to the ground in order to rid the forest of any threat.”
“I think I can convince him otherwise,” Wardieu murmured tersely, aware of the greedy haste in Nicolaa’s fingers as she tore at the fastenings of his codpiece. “Especially once I point out to him the value of having a band of dangerous outlaws on the loose in Lincoln.”
“Value?” she gasped. “What possible value could there be?”
“What value in a band of traitorous malcontents? If nothing else, I would have just cause to conduct a very thorough search of the entire demesne … thorough enough to rid my lands of any sympathizers, and costly enough to justify an increase in tithes.”
Nicolaa moistened her lips. “And … as sheriff of Lincoln—?”
“It would only be natural for you to assist me in routing these cutthroats and thieves.”
Nicolaa groaned and arched her head back as Wardieu’s knee insinuated itself between her thighs. His mouth savaged the curve of her throat; his hands tugged at the pins holding her hair plaited in a thick coil at the nape of her neck. Thunder crashed and reverberated outside the thin-paned window and lightning slashed across the sky. Nicolaa rode the hard muscles of his thigh with the same tempestuous urgency, her breath hissing from between clenched teeth, her body vibrating with sound and fury.
Wardieu ripped the seam of her bodice, exposing the blue-white flesh beneath. A nipple, hard as an arrow tip, dark as desire itself was barely suckled into a brutal mouth before she was sobbing his name and sinking weakly to her knees in orgasmic delirium.
Wardieu followed her down, amused as well as revolted to see that the more forceful he was, the more pain he inflicted, the louder her cries and moans of ecstasy. Despite her ability to drain him to the bone with her carnal skills, Nicolaa was beginning to grow tiresome in her demands. Making her sheriff would appease her appetites in some ways, but there was still the problem of her insatiable jealousy to deal with. Unfortunately she knew too many secrets and was too cunning to have them safeguarded only in her head, otherwise the problem could have been solved long ago with a simple slash of a knife.
The shocking reappearance of the dragon ring after so many years made it abundantly clear he could not take the chance of any more incriminating evidence being uncovered. While Nicolaa may not have kept the ring to hold against him, he had no doubt she would have kept evidence of another kind linking him to Robert Wardieu’s imprisonment and his brother’s attempted murder. She would not have forgotten, nor would she ever let him forget their treacherous collaboration all those years ago.
Proof of his suspicions, if he needed any further, came each time her body shuddered and her lips trembled around the name, “Etienne … Etienne … !”
17
As the menacing, fully armed troop of mercenaries rode across the narrow strip of raised land—the only dry approach to Bloodmoor Keep—Servanne’s senses were flooded with an array of disquieting emotions. Fear, most certainly, was taking its toll. The sheer size and sinister foreboding of the tall castle ramparts would have started a far stouter heart than hers quaking. The castle was a huge, sprawling monstrosity perched on the edge of a sea cliff, its many tourelles and spires etched against the low ceiling