outer wall was, in turn, surrounded by a moat and protected by a second drawbridge, guarded by a barbican tower built to hold a thick iron portcullis gate. The walls were also fitted with overhanging projections through which burning pitch or boiling oil could be poured, and were serrated with meurtrières—V-shaped vertical slots that gave the archers inside a wide range of movement to fire upon the enemy, but conversely presented a narrow, almost impossible target for returning fire.
This was the crude but effective fortification Draggan Wardieu built and successfully defended during his long lifetime. His sons, William and Crispin, along with their sons and grandsons, built on additional courtyards, halls, palisades, gatehouses, and towers until the original keep occupied only a small, isolated corner at the northernmost end of the stronghold. Within the sprawling outer bailey, there grew a self-contained village of tradesmen. The castle boasted its own smithy, tannery, armoury, alehouse, and mill, as well as vast stables, barracks, gardens and fruit orchards, all within the barrier of the stone walls. Farmers and outside tradesmen had attempted, over the years, to construct dwellings within hailing distance of the forbidding castle walls. But the terrain proved to be so unforgiving, the moor so wet and bleak, the sea such a thunderous scourge against any fishermen who tried to tame her, that the huts of mud and wattle that cringed in the shadow of the castle walls lasted only a season or two before being abandoned into ruin.
Only the immediate inhabitants of Bloodmoor suffered no lack of luxuries. The walls were thick enough and high enough to buffer the coldest and sharpest of winds. The castle was perched high enough on the cliff’s edge to mock the fury of the turbulent seas churning below. No one came to Bloodmoor uninvited. No one stayed unless they were wanted. And no one dared turn back once the huge iron-clad gates were swung closed behind them.
“If you want me to leave, just say so. It is not very often my company bores a man to lethargy and great, vast lapses of silence. Frankly, I could better waste my time elsewhere.”
The woman spoke with a low, sultry voice, emphasizing the more pertinent words with a moist, rolling purr of the tongue. Nicolaa de la Haye was a beauty and needed no confirming glances in polished steel mirrors to tell her so. The shocked look in men’s eyes was confirmation enough. The forthright rise in the front of their tunics was proof she was as desirable now, in her thirtieth year, as she had been in her thirteenth—the age at which she had left her first lover a gasping, sweating hulk of quivering exhaustion.
There had been many lovers since then, some good, some bad. Some so exceptional she had maintained her affairs with them throughout the years, needing them as urgently and as frequently as some women required possets of henbane and opium to help them endure their dreary lives.
Slightly taller than average, Nicolaa undulated rather than walked, and was proficient in using her breasts, hips, and hands in communicating with a man in ways unknown by the spoken word. Her hair was black as coal, parted in the middle, and streamed in an ebony cascade halfway to the floor. Her eyes were so dark a green as to be almost black, heavy-lidded to suggest she was constantly on the verge of arousal—which she usually was. Her lips were full and sensuous, naturally tinted a deep shade of vermeil that teased a receptive eye into speculating where, other than on another mouth, they could bestow the most pleasure.
At the moment, most of her considerable prowess and charm was indeed being wasted. Her husband, Onfroi de la Haye—a wretched, sullen pustule of a man—was somewhere in Lincolnwoods awaiting the arrival of the widow De Briscourt. Nicolaa had hastened ahead to Bloodmoor Keep, ostensibly to help oversee the preparations for the upcoming nuptials—oh, how her teeth ground together each time she heard that word—but in reality, she had wanted this time alone with the most magnificent of her lovers, the Dragon himself, Lucien Wardieu.
Had there ever been a man created to see so perfectly to a woman’s every need? The mere sight of him was enough to take anyone’s breath away: a tall blond giant of a man with herculean shoulders and eyes more dangerous than the thrust of a lance. The sound of his voice triggered liquid shivers along her spine. The scent of him encapsulated