“You’re doing it right now.”
“Am I? I was not aware.”
He gazed into her pale green eyes, again feeling that strange tingle in his chest, only this time it was a warm, tightening sensation. It was not unpleasant but he thought perhaps he was becoming ill. The sensation unnerved him.
“You are, indeed, aware,” he growled. “And this type of behavior will cease.”
His tone was enough to make her back down. “As you say, my lord.”
He stared at her, trying to discern if she was lying. He read nothing but fortitude and truth in her eyes. He almost read a challenge. Unbalanced, his jaw began to flex in an uncharacteristic display of emotion.
“You and your brood will keep to the apartments until I decide what’s to be done with you. Under no circumstances will I see your children in the great hall or anywhere outside of the keep. If I catch one of them, he shall be mine.”
“For what purpose?”
He couldn’t believe she was being combative after what he had just told her. “How’s that?”
She was quite serious. “I asked you for what purpose, my lord,” she repeated. “If you catch one of my boys, what will you do with him? Surely you don’t intend to make use of him in the midst of your mighty military installation.”
He just stared at her in amazement. He swore he could see a twinkle of sarcasm in her eye and it nearly drove him mad. The woman wastoyingwith him. He knew he had to tend to her attitude here and now, or all would be lost.
“Throw her in the vault,” he commanded.
The twinkle fled from Nicola’s eye. Conor came up and grasped her by the arm, tugging her back towards the door to the kitchens.
Kenton couldn’t even watch the expression on her face as she was taken away; he was far too angry, but he realized he was very close to immediately countering the order. He had done it purely from spite.
He heard the door to the kitchens slam and that strange tug in his chest started again.
CHAPTER TWO
Babylon’s keep
He couldn’t sleep.
It wasn’t surprising given the events of the day. Much had happened and there was still much to do but, try as he might, thoughts of the stubborn and willful Lady Nicola kept filling his mind.
His knights had split up the night watch, leaving him to conduct his own business, which was good considering how much trouble he was having concentrating on anything other than that blond slip of a woman he had tossed into the vault. It was odd, truly, because Kenton was a professional soldier, meaning he had no family or wife or even a home of his own. He was Warwick’s attack dog and he’d been doing it for over ten years, taking his crack squad of nearly one thousand men and doing Warwick’s dirty work. He’d had more than his share of victories and perhaps one or two failures in all that time. His record as an aggressive warrior was excellent and Warwick had rewarded him well for his skills. He was quite wealthy. But when it came to women, he was relatively untried. He simply tried tosteer clear of them. He’d seen too many good men fall to their seductive ways.
Therefore, a beautiful, fiery widow was something of a mystery and an object of intimidation to him; there, he’d admitted it. Lady Nicola was intimidating. Whenever the woman entered his orbit, he felt strange, as if she were weaving some magic upon him. He didn’t like it. Or perhaps he did. He hadn’t decided yet because he was so unaccustomed to such things.
But as he walked the dark, smaller hall of the entry level of the keep, there was something bothering him even more than Lady Thorne and the web of spells she cast over him, something that had been on his mind since they’d breached the great walls of Babylon. All thoughts of the lovely temptress aside, it was clear from the condition of Gaylord’s body that the man had been dead for months, which brought about a very valid question– if Gaylord Thorne had been dead for months, thenwhohad led the defenses against him?
Aye, it was thoughts of Babylon’s defenses that weighed heavily upon him at the moment. When they’d swept the castle earlier in the day, they had come across old soldiers mostly and two old knights. Kenton assumed that one of the knights had been in charge but one of them seemed to be unable to speak intelligibly and the other one seemed apathetic to the entire situation. It had been very odd. In fact, this entire place, the massive structure of enormous walls and soaring keep, was odd. There was something unsettling about the place, like it had secrets yet untold. Kenton wondered if he would ever discover them.
So he pondered his thoughts as he walked the dark level of the keep. The servants had vanished for the night and all he could hear was an occasional shout outside from one of his soldiers, men who had Babylon bottled up tightly for the night. The darkened hall had long, slender lancet windows forventilation and sounds from the night outside drifted inside. The hall, located on the second-floor entry level, took up about half of the floor. It was two-stories tall and cut up into the third floor above, with a minstrel gallery that was accessed from the third floor.
He hadn’t yet made it up to the third and fourth floors, the family sleeping rooms, mostly because he had been busy taking inventory of the wealth of what appeared to be Gaylord’s solar but also two smaller rooms that were evidently for Lady Thorne’s use because there were all manner of sewing and weaving looms in both of them. There was plate on the hearth of all three chambers, a box of coins in the larger solar, and a variety of possessions that included fine quills, elaborate ink wells, parchment for writing, various cups and chalices made from fine metals, and there were even several exquisite books that Kenton had come across.
There were also a variety of smaller closets, small windowless rooms where the servants stored things, but he hadn’t paid much attention to those smaller closets yet. He was rather surprised to see them, for most keeps didn’t possess such built-in storage, but Babylon evidently did. He was rather curious to get a look at what was inside the cubbies he had located.
Thinking on heading back to the large solar to get a closer look at the wealth he had acquired, Kenton passed into the entry hall with the stairs that led to the upper floors. The staircase was a big, supported structure that hugged one wall, following the line of the wall down until it came to a ninety-degree corner and then following the line of that wall until it reached the bottom. It was supported by big stone pillars that continued all the way up to the ceiling, as if caging in the staircase, and was quite an impressive architectural feat. Kenton had never seen another flight of stairs like it. As he moved out into the entry room to takeanother look at the big, sweeping staircase, he thought he caught a glimpse of movement near the top of the stairs.
It was dark in the entry save the silver moonbeams that poured in through two lancet windows above the arched entry door. It wasn’t enough light to see clearly but was enough to illuminate movement. Hand to the hilt of the dirk that was sheathed at his belt, he slipped underneath the staircase and silently made his way to the bottom of the steps, unseen by whoever was at the top of the flight. If it was a Thorne assassin, he planned to make short work out of him.
He was prepared.
He’d quickly gone into stalking mode. His natural resting state was one of defense, anyway, but an unknown entity in his proximity was cause for alarm. In silence, he made his way to the base of the stairs, peering up into the darkened staircase to see if he could make anything out– friend or foe. He took the first two steps, not making a sound, and it was another eight steps before the landing where the staircase took a sharp right turn and continued up to the third floor above.
