The Maiden and the Mercenary Read online

  “I’ll help free your sister from the Warstones.”

  His expression was one of a monumental challenge. But all she felt was disappointment. Tess already agreed to help without demands attached, and the way Louve was looking at her now, she felt that he would attach so many exceptions, her sister would forever be locked behind a door. Forever guarded by men who meant to do her harm. If she could scale towers, if she had coin to bargain. If she had anything else, she wouldn’t be standing here with this man, whom...she could stare at the rest of her life and could never trust.

  That took her beyond disappointment into irritation. “And I’m to trust you?”

  His eyes flashed. “I said I’d do it.”

  “That’s all you’ve said.”

  He lowered his chin. “I’ll help you escape as well. Both of you.”

  That went without saying. “Before I tell you anything, give me something of you.”

  “Something of me,” he said slowly as if the words were simple, but the meaning wasn’t. “Such as...”

  “Something...meaningful.”

  Author Note

  Louve was far too complicated for any one romance, which is why readers have seen him in several books...but that just made him more complicated. Those friendships with Nicholas and Reynold changed him.

  Here was this hero who came from a happy home, who cherished his friendships. But the happy home wasn’t his own, and the woman he gave his heart to never accepted him. When he becomes a mercenary for the Warstones, he fights battles for their power; he plots intrigues for their wealth.

  In all these years, never does he belong to one place...to one woman.

  Along comes Biedeluue, who believes everything and everyone is hers. Have burdens? She’ll take care of them. Can’t till your own field? She’ll earn coin for oxen.

  But Louve? He has burdens she’s not prepared for, and his heart? Well, that remains to be seen...

  NICOLE LOCKE

  The Maiden and

  the Mercenary

  Nicole Locke discovered her first romance novels in her grandmother’s closet, where they were secretly hidden. Convinced that books that were hidden must be better than those that weren’t, Nicole greedily read them. It was only natural for her to start writing them—but now not so secretly.

  Books by Nicole Locke

  Harlequin Historical

  The Lochmore Legacy

  Secrets of a Highland Warrior

  Lovers and Legends

  The Knight’s Broken Promise

  Her Enemy Highlander

  The Highland Laird’s Bride

  In Debt to the Enemy Lord

  The Knight’s Scarred Maiden

  Her Christmas Knight

  Reclaimed by the Knight

  Her Dark Knight’s Redemption

  Captured by Her Enemy Knight

  The Maiden and the Mercenary

  Visit the Author Profile page

  at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  Some stories can’t be written without people who, just by your sitting and sitting...and sitting and sitting near them, eventually, graciously, become your friends.

  So to you all at South Seattle Writers Group: Dan, Olin, Scot, Mark, Meg, Kelly, Cheri, Tony, Jamie, Lauren and Joe. Thanks for allowing me to be that strange woman in the corner. You can’t possibly know how much it has meant to me.

  And thanks to that Denny’s on Fourth Avenue. The one that lets me sit at the bar...all day long. Thanks especially to Bobbie, Christina, Clark, Denetta, Kay, Linda, Mario. Oh, and I know I’m missing others! Please know, if I could be there now to pester you all, I would.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Excerpt from The Governess’s Secret Longing by Elizabeth Beacon

  Chapter One

  France—1297

  Biedeluue wiped the back of her hand against her mouth and concentrated on the tower of goblets stacked on the well-worn table before her. The chanting crowd around her and her challenger jostled for a closer position and she shoved back.

  ‘These hips of mine aren’t moving for anyone!’ She brandished the goblet in her hand and they all stepped merrily aside.

  ‘I’ll move your hips!’

  Galen winked one eye, then the other much more slowly. Ah, not winking, but trying to focus through the haze of ale, like her.

  ‘Attempting to move my hips when drunken is how you first fell to misfortune, Galen.’ She pointed somewhere in the vicinity of his stack. ‘Now, let’s see how you apply yourself with smaller...goblets.’

  ‘As if he could be so fortunate!’ shouted Tess, from the baking ovens.

  Someone clapped and everyone from the wafer maker to the cup bearer howled. The kitchens were normally bustling, but now, even the doorways were crammed with field people. The kitchens were as large as kingdoms, but even so, she heard a crash to her right as the crowd moved and several heads whipped around to see the destruction.

  She didn’t, however—any quick movement was ill-advised. How many gulps of ale had she had? She’d stopped counting after twenty, trusting the betting crowd had their own vested interest to keep track of the game.

  It was up to her to stack the goblets for each gulp of ale. She narrowed her eyes at the wavering mound. Ten...twenty? Oh, maybe twenty-five gulps of ale.

  Which meant Galen, the challenger, had also had twenty-five... No, he’d just thrown back another and grabbed a goblet to stack on top of the tower he’d made.

  Damn him, his height and those arms that were twice as tall and...twice as many as he had before. Four arms? An unfair advantage to be sure!

  ‘No helping!’ she called out as Henry sneaked a supporting hand to Galen’s back when he staggered backwards.

  Henry lifted both his hands and she nodded her head at him in satisfaction. A mistake, which she fixed by widening her stance.

  If Galen fell, she won. If Galen toppled his goblets before her, she won. And if she won, she got... She got...

  She’d win! She liked that part the best. Right now she needed to win. It was important because she wasn’t winning at anything else and there was more at stake here.

  A roiling wave to her stomach as her thoughts darkened. She blinked hard, peering at the raucous crowd and the goblets she had stupidly assembled entirely too high. She needed to put another on the top.

  An easy task. All the tasks were easy. Stack the goblets, drink the drink and beat the brewer Galen, who reportedly hadn’t lost a game of drink since he was a babe.

  That was a bet she could win because she hadn’t lost a game of drink since she was a babe and she was older than Galen. In fact, she was older than most of the servants in the Warstone kitchens. The only ones older than her were t
he ones already with babies and who lived in the village outside the fortress.

  She was old enough for a husband and family of her own, too, but had been avoiding any such connections. Entirely because of the village men who’d enjoyed manipulating a girl whose father had abandoned her, her four siblings and their weakened mother.

  Though she couldn’t imagine a family of her own, the one she had she’d do anything for. By the time she could, Biedeluue, after hours in the fields, helped her mother cook, clean and cuddle away the pain of scrapes and bruises of her siblings. When that wasn’t enough, she had left to earn coin and only returned to give her mother and siblings what she could to ease her family’s struggles.

  All her siblings, save for one, were still in their village outside Lyon. And though she travelled to work, they still never left her in peace. They still needed her and she did what she could for them.

  So when she received that scrap of parchment from the youngest, Margery, the one not at home, that she was in danger and to send their brothers immediately, Biedeluue didn’t hesitate to rush to her aid, just as she’d always done before.

  Because out of all the hardships she’d had to endure to save her family...the fact she couldn’t save Margery from a worse fate pained her most of all. Margery, who always had to be protected because, when times became truly hard, the village men didn’t stop at just Biedeluue.

  What had happened to Margery now? That message. Hastily scrawled so that Biedeluue could barely read it. Not even signed, but she knew who’d written it because of one distinctive loop. Always the beautiful loops in the writing even if the message was terrifying.

  However, after asking for work and gaining the trust of the servants, she didn’t know how to aid her sister who was trapped here in this Warstone fortress. Bied had now been here for a fortnight and still hadn’t seen or spoken to her sister. Wasn’t even certain she was held captive because no matter whom she asked, no one knew a woman named Margery. No one...

  What if she wasn’t here? She must be. This was Ian of Warstone’s personal fortress. One Bied recognised from the overt wealth, intimidation and malice in every stone and floorboard. She’d never met that man whom her sister had been overjoyed to have captured the attention of, but everything Margery had told her in that letter gave her goose pimples and not the good kind.

  No, regrettably, her sister must be here. The chambermaid let slip that if the mistress kept weeping, no amount of cold water would ever get her swollen lavender eyes lovely again.

  Lavender eyes. Margery was the only one of her siblings to have eyes that colour. Her sister. Trapped and fearful. So close and... Mustn’t think dark thoughts. Mustn’t...

  Biedeluue swallowed hard, tasting the ale and her worry.

  ‘If you’re wanting to spew,’ Henry said, ‘there’s a goblet right in your hand.’

  ‘Or a...few...in front of you.’ Galen belched.

  She narrowed her eyes. Galen needed to fall and soon. Except... Swinging her attention back to the tower in front of her, she saw that the goblets hadn’t got smaller in her reverie. There was over a...a lot of them...and she still had one in her hand.

  Where had that come from?

  * * *

  ‘I have been sent on many missions before,’ Louve of Mei Solis said, ‘but this is by far the most foolish one yet.’

  ‘At least you said foolish and not dangerous,’ Balthus of Warstone said. ‘That lends hope.’

  Louve loosened his hands on the reins, but the horse beneath him pawed the earth. No doubt it felt the unease from him and his men. It was the wait weighing on them. It was the fact that by going forward, some would be killed.

  And this was one of the easier of days after hard travel gathering men and supplies, which took far longer than it should, so by the time they investigated the area they were plagued by rain and frost. Now they were supposed to penetrate an impenetrable fortress and either procure information which would end wars or capture the man who held such important secrets.

  Given the fortress and a certain man were surrounded by hundreds of well-trained warriors, the task was not a simple one.

  ‘When I said foolish, didn’t that imply the mission was dangerous?’ Louve said.

  Balthus shrugged. ‘How am I to interpret your vague and insouciant descriptions? We’ve known each other less than a month. Even that has been too much.’

  Louve ignored the insult. Balthus had made it obvious since the beginning of this journey from Troyes he didn’t want Louve’s company. In that, he was exactly like the rest of his family. ‘I learnt vague from your brother Reynold.’

  ‘Whom, in my entire life, I have spent less time with than you.’

  Louve could hear both the accusation and the curiosity in Balthus’s voice. Even if he had a lifetime, he couldn’t describe Reynold, one of the four brothers of the Warstone family, and the man who’d hired him as a mercenary. Over the years, Reynold had become a friend to Louve, though Reynold continued to deny it.

  The fact he could even call such a man friend was an irony, since Reynold of Warstone was an enemy of his only other friend, Nicholas of Mei Solis. Also, the Warstones were secretly undermining the King of England. An act Louve couldn’t fathom given he wasn’t from nobility or familiar with the intrigues of court.

  Intrigues which had led him here on the same mission that Reynold had borne his entire life. To stop the Warstone family from gaining the power they so hungrily garnered. Their wealth, their reach already could cripple monarchs, and still they weren’t satisfied. They were also...evil.

  Husband against wife. Brothers raised separately. The Warstones only combined against kingdoms. Then Reynold had broken ranks, turned on them all.

  Somehow Louve, of no noble blood, whose skills were more with ledgers than daggers, was in the middle of it all. For a man who dreamed of a little land of his own and a gentle wife who accepted him, how did he end up in these conspiracies? Because he wanted to earn enough coin so he could acquire the quiet life he yearned for.

  Where did that leave Balthus, brother of Reynold? Was he a friend? No, nor did Balthus desire to be. But the younger man was growing on him and that in itself was a worry.

  Because the man they were here to steal from, or torture for information, whichever became necessary first, was the last Warstone brother: Ian. Four brothers, one already dead. All raised to be enemies against each other. Reynold and Balthus finally combined against the last, but Ian was reported to be the most diabolical.

  As far as Louve was concerned, that could be applied to any one of them. In the time he’d spent with the two Warstones, he knew they had much commonality between them: greed, arrogance and an unnerving intelligence. Every bit of it Louve felt penetrating him as Balthus stood at his side.

  ‘Are you watching me?’ Louve said.

  ‘You went unnaturally quiet and stared unblinkingly at a barren tree,’ Balthus said. ‘You do this, and I worry for your reasoning. I worry for mine since I’m trusting you with my life.’

  He wondered if he was going mad as well and only more so lately as he debated his choices. First was leaving his home to become a mercenary for Reynold, the next was agreeing to go on a mission with a Warstone he didn’t know. Recognizing that he needed coin, and that becoming a mercenary was the more effective way to do it, did little to mitigate the aggravation of the situation.

  Mere months ago, Balthus, the youngest, approached Reynold for an alliance against Ian. Louve was there for it all, knew what was at stake and accepted the consequences of which he knew there would be many. Alliances between madmen wasn’t a secure beginning.

  Still, in the hopes for peace in his own life, Louve humoured the two brothers. Warstones. The name implied it all. ‘Your brother is too cunning to hire foolish men.’

  ‘How am I to know of my brother when you tell me nothing?’

  ‘You
won’t know any more than he tells you himself,’ Louve said.

  ‘Years in his employ and you won’t share something?’

  ‘Not if I want to keep my head. Your brother wouldn’t appreciate it. If you’re truly curious, look to yourself for answers,’ Louve said. The fact both were curious and refused friendship, but still held some sense of honour and loyalty, fascinated Louve.

  ‘Damn you, you know I would be curious about this,’ Balthus said.

  ‘Your thoughts will keep you well occupied, unlike this hope you talk of. Hope, I remind you, we have no use for.’

  Balthus shrugged one shoulder. ‘Hope is better than this wait. I liked the journey here, for at least then we wagered and raced horses. Now I’m just cold out here.’

  ‘I thought you hated those wagers because you always lost to me,’ Louve said.

  ‘Everyone lost to you and I hate this wait more.’

  ‘You simply don’t like paying men when there’s no profit.’

  ‘Who would? It took us too long to find them all.’

  ‘We couldn’t use Reynold’s men, and you couldn’t entirely trust your own. We needed many new mercenaries.’

  ‘Now my pockets are empty. If we could have travelled farther to that estate—’

  ‘Mei Solis,’ Louve offered.

  ‘I’ll never remember such an odd name,’ Balthus said. ‘However, if we could have stopped there first, I’d have some coin.’

  Louve had a chest of his own, but Balthus was used to enormous sums. Sums which were in abundance in Mei Solis coffers. An estate that was weeks away and in another country. Balthus would have to get used to being poor, which was almost enjoyable.

  ‘You’ll simply have to suffer with the coin given to me,’ Louve said. ‘We received your brother’s message to come here. Plans change.’

  ‘We received that message less than a day after leaving Troyes. I’m still not certain if Reynold already possessed the information and was too cowardly to tell us in person.’

  Louve couldn’t fault Balthus for trying to get an answer from him, but his tactic was too obvious.