Chained (Chained Trilogy) (28 page)

“Do not despair, wench,” Ca
den grunted. “Your actions tonight may have just saved them all. Someday, they will love you for it.”

He was right, of course. Gwen wiped the accursed tear away and continued rowing, her strokes timed perfectly with his. They rowed silently for a time, keeping well within the curving shore edging Seahaven, nothing more than the sound of their heavy breathing passing between them. After a while, Gwen grew weary of the silence.

“Why did you do it?” she asked. “You could have let him take me, but you did not. I am nothing to you, yet you intervened. Why?”

Silence greeted her, and for a moment she feared he did not mean to answer her. Finally, he spoke.

“Because you are a flame,” he answered quietly, “burning brightly. While you may be the most annoying woman I have ever known, you are also one of the most headstrong and determined. It would be a shame to see that flame extinguished … no matter whose daughter you are.”

Gwen felt her pulse racing at his declaration. “I
do believe that is the kindest thing you have ever said to me, Daleraian.”

“
’Tis the truth. That is what will become of you if you marry him. I could see that the moment you laid eyes upon him in your great hall. You shut yourself away, where no one could see you beneath the veneer of a fine and biddable lady. How long before the woman inside becomes lost in the act?”

She snorted.
“Do you think I have a choice? I assure you, I do not. The match was my mother’s notion and she quickly convinced my father. I am but a woman, and as such I am the property of men to buy, sell, and barter with.”

“In Daleraia, women are knighted for their valor,” he mused.

“Do not think me stupid enough to believe knighthood makes them your equals,” she countered.

“
I would never make the mistake of thinking you are stupid. However, I like to think you’d be a knight in Daleraia. A wench whose arrows are as sharp as her tongue. No Daleraian man would ever seek to force you, lest he find himself on the wrong end of your bow.” Gwen laughed, but Caden remained grave. “I do not jest, wench,” he muttered. “If you were smart, you’d slit Gaiwan Bainard’s throat as he sleeps at the very first opportunity. I will not always be there to save you.”

Gwen fell silent after that. For hours they rowed, until Gwen’s shoulders, arms, and back were burning from the strain. The day had been long and eventful
; fatigue was beginning to set in, sinking as deep as Gwen’s bones. By the time the sun began climbing up over the horizon, Gwen had begun to fade—keeping her eyes open became a battle hard fought. They steered the little boat inland once the sun had risen, agreeing that they’d gone far enough to avoid being overtaken. Leaving the boat in the sand, they trudged toward the thick tangle of trees just beyond Dinasdale’s beach.

“I am not certain where we are,” Gwen said
when they found a clearing in which to eat and rest. The River Tyryn awaited them, blessedly cool and blue. Gwen sank to her knees and washed her hands in the rushing river as Caden unbuckled the borrowed sword belt from his hips, resting the broadsword and shortsword they’d stolen from the armory against a nearby tree. It was a risk, trusting him with weapons, but then her entire scheme was risky. Besides, he had more than proved that he meant her no harm. “If I had to guess, I would say we are on the borders of Freyvale. We rowed for hours.”

Caden shrugged. “We will know when the sea empties into the bay
. From there, it may be safest to bypass the bay altogether, and dock in Ir’os, putting us safely on Daleraian lands. Sir Hadrian Arundel is lord there. His castellan would happily provide us horses and provisions to see us safely to Minas Bothe.”

“It is a sound plan,” she agreed
. She joined him, sitting cross-legged in the grass as he produced their modest provisions from the sack. “I agree that is the best course, as well as the safest. Though, I would have liked to row into the bay just to see if my father’s ships are still docked there. Then I might know if Evrain, Achart, and Leofred met with them safely. Not knowing has been torture.” Caden grimaced as he tore a hunk of bread in half before giving her the larger half. Gwen shook her head and refused it, taking the smaller portion. “This will do,” she murmured. “I am a small woman. I would imagine a man of your … stature must need to keep his strength up, and you have been in irons for weeks.”

He smirked. “Milady notices my stature, does she? I am flattered to know it.”

Gwen’s face grew warm, and she thanked the gods for her dark, ebony skin—otherwise she’d have blushed and he would know how embarrassed she was. “I only meant that you are a great oaf,” she replied, averting her eyes as she bit into her bread. “Large and unsightly.”

Caden only chuckled. “And you are a shrill
, gangly little bird,” he teased. “There, have we finished trading insults, wench?”

As always, his jests caused annoyance to rear its head. “You hardly thought I was gangly when you kissed me
,” Gwen huffed.

Caden’s eyes glinted with amusement. “Aye, wench, that is true enough.” He moved until he was beside her, so close now that she could see the way his eyes darkened at the center, a deeper blue that faded into the black of his irises. “You did not exactly fight me.”

Gwen’s lips parted on her own accord, her breath quickening when one of his hands came up toward her face. She didn’t flinch away from his touch—rather, she leaned into it, resting her cheek in his palm. “No,” she whispered. “I did not.”

“Why?” he asked, his thumb tracing slow circles on her cheek.
Trembling, Gwen turned away, but Caden’s fingers found her chin and gripped it lightly, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Why, wench?”

“I wanted to know if there was something wrong with me,” she answered truthfully. “With Gaiwan, I felt nothing—no passion, no desire. I know there is some great secret that is held from maidens. Some truth about the marriage bed that is hidden, and instead we are told that is only a duty and a burden. I wanted to know how it felt to kiss someone who is not Gaiwan.
”

To kiss you …
She did not say the words, but she thought them.

Without preamble, Caden pulled
her toward him, his hand moving to the back of her neck. The touch elicited shivers, which raced down her spine as their lips met. His other hand joined the first, the fingers sliding through the strands of hair coming loose from her braid. Unlike their first kiss, this one was slow and methodical, gentle and sweet. Caden’s tongue was merely a whisper across the seam of her lips, and she opened to him, meeting it with an answering murmur. Gwen’s body came alive at his touch, her skin breaking out in goose bumps as his fingers skimmed her neck and shoulders, finding her breasts through the fabric of her tunic and squeezing lightly, causing the nipples to respond to their command. His hands spanned her waist, holding her there tightly, as if anchoring her to him. In return, she fisted his tunic and clung to him.

Somehow, she found herself in his lap, her legs straddling his as the kiss went on and on, lips meeting and parting again and again, tongues caressing in a sensual dance. She could
feel him through his breeches—that male part of him rising and filling with his blood, pressing against her urgently. Gaiwan’s rampant cock had frightened her, repulsed her, caused her more harm than pleasure, and Gwen wasn’t certain she’d want to look upon it ever again, let alone feel it inside of her. Not so with Caden. She was seized with the overwhelming urge to touch him, to take him into her body in a joining of flesh. What little she knew of men was enough. She knew what the pulsating ridge begging for entrance between her thighs meant. Caden wanted her, too, perhaps even as badly as she wanted him.

However, she c
ould never be so bold as to tell him aloud. All she knew about the act of lovemaking she’d learned from Gaiwan, and that lesson taught her that men expected their women to simply lie still and endure them. Gwen wasn’t sure how, but she knew Caden would be different. Perhaps it was his kiss, so thorough and tender, or his hands, so large and capable of such mayhem, yet they touched her so reverently. Either way, she knew he would be different. Yet, she did not know enough about it to initiate the act. He would, she knew, he had to. A man like Caden did what he pleased, and just now she knew that he would be more than happy to take her.

Please
, she thought,
just once, and then I can go to my marriage to Gaiwan with the memory if nothing else.

Instead
, Caden withdrew, snatching his lips away from hers abruptly and setting her gently away from him. His eyes had gone dark, the pupils wide, his lips parted and slick from her tongue. “No, wench,” he said, his voice low and raspy, “there is not a thing wrong with you. You’re as passionate a woman as I thought you’d be. If there is no enjoyment to be found in your marriage bed, the fault certainly does not lie with you.”

Hope swelled in Gwen’s chest. “Caden—”

“I know what you want, milady,” he said with a sad smile. “I cannot lie and say I do not feel the same. But you are not mine to want, and certainly are not mine to take. Trust me, in the end there would be only regret.”

Gwen felt a heavy lump rising swiftly
in her throat and the sting of tears in her eyes. She had never thought to face rejection, yet she bore it now and it stung bitterly. Gwen blinked the tears away, willing them not to fall. “You are right, of course,” she said coolly. “Let us forget it never happened, and speak on it no more.”

Caden nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Aye, a good idea. Now, we sleep. It is best that we travel under cover of darkness, and the day is still young. We will rest and continue on at sunset.”

Gwen nodded her agreement and silently turned, finding her cloak and bundling it into a pillow for her head. She lay on her side in the grass with her back to Caden and tried to quiet her mind. She heard the muffled sounds of him settling down for sleep beside her, and stiffened when their backs nearly touched, barely a whisper of space between them. The sound of the ocean in the distance slowly lulled her to sleep.

***

Vor’shy, Dinasdale

Young Jorin Toustain did not like it in the castle of the Saint-Clairs. It was a great honor to be fostered by them, Lord Clarion had told him when informing him of the decision to send him there. Lord Mador Saint-Clair was a fierce warrior in his day, and had some of the strongest knights in all of Dinasdale in his service. His bastards were as fierce, though they spent most of their time pleasure-seeking. How they’d all managed to earn knighthoods was beyond Jorin.

He
like Lord Mador well enough—the man was jovial, always ready with a smile, a jest, and a laugh, and was almost always drunk. Lord Mador loved his food and wine, but of course everyone knew he loved women more. His mistress—Lady Arabella—resided at Vor’shy, in her own suite of rooms in the part of the keep known as the Tower of Many Pleasures. She was a beautiful woman, the daughter of a Dinasdalian merchant and a Lerrothian woman. Her skin was a smooth, buttery brown, her eyes wide and honey hued, her hair a dark mass falling down her back. She dressed in daring gowns that bared too much bosom and she wasn’t a proper lady, but Jorin liked her as well, he supposed. She was kind, even if she was only Lord Mador’s mistress.

It was rumored that Lord Mado
r and his sons kept concubines in the Tower of Many Pleasures, a tale that the lord himself adamantly denied, but Jorin could not know for sure as he’d never set foot inside the tower. He was not allowed to; none of the squires were.

All
of the squires slept on small pallets at the foot of their knights’ beds, so they could be available to serve them at all times. Because he was Lord Clarion’s son, Jorin had been chosen by Gaubert Saint-Clair, Lord Mador’s firstborn son. Jorin wondered if it could even be considered an honor to serve Gaubert when he was only second in a long line of bastards. He never asked aloud, of course; no one ever wanted to risk insulting Lord Mador, who had claimed all five of his bastard children and raised them under his own roof. Besides, one of those baseborn children was his sister-in-law, Lady Josaine, and Jorin loved her. So, he eventually forgot all about Gaubert’s parentage and sought about trying to please his new master. Gaubert was as jovial as his father, but only so long as his commands were carried out quickly, the first time he made them.

Jorin rose at dawn every morning and tended to Gaubert’s needs. He fetched water for Gaubert to wash, helped
him to dress, polished his boots, then cleaned Gaubert’s chambers once the lord’s son had departed to the great hall for breakfast. He changed the linens, swept the floors, tossed out the used washing water, and ensured all was in order before descending to the great hall himself. He ate with the other squires, pushed back into a corner of the hall, far from the high table. For one who was used to dining at the high table, it was a long way to fall. He hated being in the shadowed corners, away from the heaping platters of choice meat cuts served to the lord and his sons, where the other boys where rowdy and the hounds begged for scraps and sniffed the rushes for discarded bones. Jorin felt out of place there.

The afternoon was his favorite time, as it was when the knights and men-at-arms would train, tak
ing the squires under their wings. Jorin loved the hours spent practicing with bow, spear, lance, and sword. His brothers had taught him much already, and he was the best amongst the squires, a fact that brought him pride. Luncheon was a simpler affair than breakfast or dinner, with hunks of meat being roasted over open cookfires in the outer bailey; casks of ale, wheels of cheese, and baskets of bread accompanying it. He enjoyed standing around the fire, listening to the knights tell their battle stories. Some of them were old enough to have lived in the time of the War of Four Kings, and spoke of the great battles where many of them had earned their shields.