Yet Valteri could never truly fault his grandfather for his superstition, any more than he could fault all the poor religious shandys who clung to their beliefs. It seemed ever the plight of the sheep to follow after whatever wolf led them.
Not that William, for all his piety, had ever listened to those evil tales.Honestly, Valteri still didn’t understand why his brother had been different.
Other than the fact that Will had never been anyone’s sheep.
To this day, Will hadn’t told him why he’d come that day. William had always attributed it to divine providence.
“I was meant to find you, brother.”
Whatever it’d been, it’d changed his life, as Will had set him free from that monastery hell and put him under the military tutelage of one of his allies. From that day forward, he’d ceased being the poor possessed child the brothers struggled to exorcize, and had become a determined squire. He’d trained harder than the other boys, knowing he must be the fiercest if he was to ever silence their mockery and scorn.
Even though Lord Hugh had been a bastard who had no more love of him than anyone else, he’d taught Valteri everything he needed to go to war.
Aye, he’d cracked a few skulls, but in the end he’d achieved his long-sought peace. No one dared taunt him to his face.
Not even Hugh.
Until now.
“Valteri?”
He jumped at the gentle voice behind him. How had she come upon him without his hearing her?
“I’m here, milady.”
Ariel walked forward into the stable. He felt more than saw her.
The horses immediately quieted as if her presence soothed them as much as it did him. She held her arms outstretched, tentatively searching the area around her, and walked slowly into the darkness where he sat.
The dark shadows where he lived.
Cursing himself for the stupidity, he rose and closed the distance between them. Even more foolish, he took her outstretched hands. Her cold fingers trembled in his and the softness of her skin reminded him of everything he’d ever wanted.
Everything he’d been denied.
“Why have you come?”
“I was worried over you. I kept thinking you’d return, and when you didn’t… I just had a feeling inside that told me to find you.”
He cherished those words. And damned them.
She shivered from the cold, and the wetness of her kirtle that clung to those feminine curves that haunted him, while dreaming and awake.
“You’re soaked through,” Valteri growled, his hands tightening on hers an instant before he released her.
Ariel reached for where he’d been, but found nothing other than blackness, and she feared he’d left her alone.
Until he returned with a blanket, and draped it over her shoulders. She smiled at his kindness.
“’Twould seem I’m forever drying you off.”
She laughed at his gruff tone, and adjusted the blanket, her cheeks warming as she remembered what had happened after the last time he’d chased away the cold.
And at this moment she would happily welcome his touch. Especially the tenderness of his kiss.
Just looking at him, she burned in a way she’d have never thought possible.
“For your kind attention, Lord Gallant, I’d gladly hurl myself into a lake.”
