The second floor with the great hall and solar were relatively quiet. A few servants milled about and dogs were wrestling in the great hall. Kellington moved across the entry and into the solar, heading for her father’s desk. Being May, there was the matter of a late spring harvest coming up for apricots and cherries and she wanted to make sure they were prepared to take the produce to market once picked. With all of their soldiers killed and most male servants either murdered or run off, the burden of harvest would fall on the women.
On the shelf next to the hearth lay the tally books for Pelinom. They were carefully rolled sheets of parchment, secured with a strip of dried gut. Every year had a different roll and rolls from previous years were stamped with her father’s seal and carefully stored on the upper shelves. Kellington went for the roll that had the tallies from this year’s harvests so far. On the lowest shelf at knee-level was a wooden box that held a quill, ink, a wax stick and her father’s signet. She carefully collected the box, the roll of parchment, and put them both down on the desk.
Collecting the tall stool that she would perch herself on for hours while she completed her tallies, Kellington settled herself on the seat and laid out her parchment. Her very careful writing filled about a quarter of the sheet, tallies from January through April. Most of the tally was for honey, the result of a particularly fruitful fall and very busy bees. But there was also a tally for the upcoming apricot and cherry harvest and an estimate of what she projected to glean. As Kellington tried to determine just how to harvest so much produce with very little labor force, Jax suddenly entered the solar.
She’d never heard him enter the keep; all had seemed still and quiet in the entry hall beyond. She hadn’t even heard a door open. But suddenly he was standing in the doorway and she was startled by his abrupt appearance.
“My lord?” she said before he could speak. “Do you require something?”
He just stood there a moment, appraising her with his dual-colored eyes. As time passed, the unnerving effect of his unusual eyes had less and less of an impact on her. Now she was coming to find them strangely intriguing.
“Some visitors have arrived,” he said in his rumbling baritone. “We will require the hall as a meeting place and refreshment.”
“Of course.”
She set down her quill and plopped off the stool. Just as she passed Jax on her way from the solar, she suddenly came to a halt.
“When your meeting is over, I would request some time to meet with you as well,” she said, craning her neck back to look up at him; he was so tall she had to practically lay her head back. “We are coming upon two critical harvests and it would seem that I do not have enough servants to complete the task.”
“Why not?”
She lifted an eyebrow at him. “Because you killed most of our labor force when you took the castle. Now I have only a few female servants to accomplish a task that usually takes several dozen men.”
He did not react to what he could have interpreted as a rebuke. “There is a village to the south.”
“Aye; Hadden is six miles to the south. What about it?”
“I will recruit your labor force from there.”
She eyed him warily. “Perhaps you should let me do it. You will only terrify people if you go there demanding workers.”
“And?”
“And, they will run from you. I need them to run to Pelinom, not run away from it.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. Kellington could see that he was struggling not to smile.
“It is not funny,” she said frankly.
He let his smile break through, reluctantly. “Nay, it is not, but it is the way you say it. Do you want my help or not?”
“I do not.”
“Then what did you need to meet with me about?”
“To ask your thoughts on the matter. Now that I have them, I would ask permission to travel to the village of Hadden and hire some workers.”
His smile faded. “Not without escort, lady.”
She shook her head at him vehemently. “Not you. Send me with someone else. One look at you and you’ll have everyone running for their lives.”
He should have agreed with her. The less bothered he was with her, the better. But eight days of attempting to separate himself from her and the conflicts she created within him had been destroyed by two minutes in her presence. She made him smile. She wasn’t afraid to tell him what she thought of him. She made him feel as no one had ever made him feel. Never being one to show emotion, he had no idea how to control them once they surfaced. Ajax de Velt always took what he wanted. That did not change.
Reaching out, he grasped her around the head and kissed her so hard that Kellington nearly fainted with the force of it. At first she tried to pull away. But it only took a few seconds for her to feel his heat, the soft strength of his lips, and surrender completely. It was the third time he had kissed her so she should have known what to expect; complete, utter dominance. What she gave him was complete, utter submission.
In little time, she was limp in his arms as his mouth worked her lips furiously. His tongue, a wicked heated thing, invaded her sweet mouth and licked her senseless. He was so enormous that being held by him was the most overwhelming sensation she could imagine; she should very well have been terrified. Ajax de Velt was a man of terror and death. But he also had the sweetest kiss she could have possibly experienced. With all of the force and lust behind it, there was something innately passionate and inviting about his touch. The man could easily crush her, but all she could feel was tender power. It was a heady and bizarre combination.
This time when he released her, he did not abruptly let her go as he had in the past. He continued to hold her in his consuming embrace, gazing at her with his dual colored eyes as if attempting to figure out why he had suddenly kissed her.
“I will indeed escort you,” he whispered huskily. “And I will hear no argument from you.”
Kellington gazed back into his amazing eyes, feeling the heat but not the fear she usually associated with him. She swallowed hard.
“I told you not to do that again.”
“Do what? Kiss you?” his arms tightened. “You’ll not give me orders, lady.”
“I told you I would not be your whore.”
“And so you are not.”
It was a definitive reply. He had a point, but she still had to protest the liberties he was taking. If she didn’t take a stand now, there was no telling what he would do in the future. She was proving to be a rather compliant partner and the mere thought embarrassed her to death. She eyed him, still struggling with her composure.
“As long as we understand one another, then,” she said softly. “And I will allow you to accompany me to town on one condition.”
He lifted a dark eyebrow. “More demands from you?”
“One condition, my lord.”
He pursed his lips irritably, shifted his grip, and pulled her closer. His mouth nuzzled her cheek as he inhaled deeply of the faint rose scent. “Then state it and be done.”
She gasped as his lips fixed on her tender neck, suckling gently and sending wild sensations bolting through her body. She could hardly think as the new sensations consumed her like a wildfire.
“Are you going to tell me?” he spoke with his lips against her jaw.
She swallowed, struggling against the feelings that were very quickly overwhelming her. But with her last threads of control, she formulated a reply.
“I would ask that you not maim, burn, or kill anyone in order to gain their compliance,” she said breathlessly.
He didn’t immediately respond. Summoning her wits, Kellington put a hand over his mouth to stop his onslaught, forcing him to look her in the eye. Their gazes met and she lifted her eyebrows to emphasize her point.
“Agreed?” she said. “Give me your promise that you will not terrorize the peasants in order to gain their agreement.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “As you wish,” he said th
rough her fingers.
She removed her hand, gazing into a face that was becoming increasingly handsome to her. She knew the man was a killer. But he had never known anything else. She was coming to sense that, beneath the terror, there was more to him than met the eye. She should not have warmed to him. She should not have accepted him in any way. But she had been right when she had told him she felt sorry for him; Ajax de Velt had never known anything but death and destruction. Murder and blood were the norm for him. She wondered if he would ever be able to learn anything else.
“I am serious, my lord,” she whispered.
He was watching her lips as she spoke. “I told you that I would agree to your condition. What more do you want?”
“I want you to swear it.”
“Then I swear it.”
“Good,” she began to realize he had no intention of letting her go and she put her hands between them, pushing against his chest. “Release me. I must see to your visitors.”
He didn’t let her go just yet. His eyes raked her more boldly than they ever had, lingering on her slender neck and the ripe swell of her bosom. “Since you only address me as ‘my lord’ when you wish something, I will allow you to call me Jax when we are in private.”
She stopped pushing, looking at him with astonishment. “Jax?”
“That is my name.”
So he was permitting her to address him informally. Somehow their relationship was clouding the line between captive and captor, and it puzzled her greatly. Her face screwed into a confused expression.
“Why would you…?” she began, then thought better of her question. “I am your prisoner, my lord. We do not know each other socially and we are certainly not courting. Why would you have me address you with such familiarity?”
He lifted an eyebrow and suddenly released her. The warm expression on his face was vanished. “Because I wish it. You need no other reason.”
Her cheeks flushed with irritation and perhaps a bit of embarrassment. “I have never heard of a prisoner addressing her captor with such informality.”
“Yet you have already admitted you know nothing of warfare,” he countered. “I make my own rules, Kelli. ’Tis best if you simply obey them.”
It was the second time he had called her by her nickname. This time, she caught it. “Who told you to call me Kelli?”
“I heard your father call you that.”
“Even so, I did not give you permission to use the name.”
He lifted an eyebrow, a bemused expression on his face. “Must I ask it?”
She shrugged, attempting to look indignant but not doing a very good job. He laughed softly, the first time she had ever heard him do so. When she looked at him, his dimples were deep and his teeth straight and white. He had a very handsome smile if she thought on it.
“Very well,” he said quietly. “I would like to call you Kelli now and again. May I have your permission to do so?”
He sounded like a gentleman. Shocked, it was difficult for her to refuse. “Since you ask so politely, I will grant it.”
He bowed deeply. “Thank you, my lady,” he stood up, his two-color eyes glimmering at her. “You are most gracious.”
In spite of herself, a faint smile creased her lips. He smiled back, hardly looking like the horrible man who had invaded Pelinom two weeks ago. He was at ease, unstressed by a battle, and more human than she had ever known him to be. Afraid they were going to end up in a wicked embrace again and not entirely sure she would be able to resist him, she lowered her gaze and swept past him. She had duties to attend to and it was best that she do it.
Jax watched her go, moving silently and swiftly through the great hall and to the stair that led down into the kitchens. The woman was succeeding in bringing out traits in him that he never knew to exist. He found himself wishing that the situation was different, that she was not his captive and he was not her conqueror. In another place, another time, he would have openly vied for her hand. Perhaps he still would. That was something he had never come close to in his thirty two years upon the earth.
So much for staying away from her. With a deep sigh, he quit the solar and headed out to the bailey.
*
They called them the Titans. That was what Jax and his generals were known as throughout England, Wales and Scotland. They were the most ruthless mercenaries in the dark times of Henry II’s England, men who would burn, pillage, rape and murder in order to gain their wants. Now the Titans were converging on Pelinom, at Jax’s request, and the sight was overwhelming.
Ajax de Velt was the leader. It was through him that all else was accomplished. It had taken Jax and his generals eighteen months to commandeer six castles along the Welsh Marches, from Welshpool to Brecon, controlling the roads that passed from Wales into England and stealing all they could get their hands on. The Marcher lords backed off from any real action with de Velt simply because the man was so ruthless. Moreover, he kept the Welsh occupied because he was dug so deeply into their lands. But the Norman lords of England watched de Velt and his generals closely, six generals that were in charge of each of the six castles, monitoring their movements and biding their time. For now, de Velt’s attention was on the Welsh and off of the Norman castles that lay within his range – Powys, Montgomery, Dolforwyn, Clun, Clifford and Brecon. The Marcher lords of de Clare and de Braose and Walter Clifford eyed de Velt as enemy and ally all at once. They were not as powerful as he was and they knew it.
Apollo L’Ancresse was the first general to greet Jax. The men were, in fact, cousins. Apollo was followed by Orion d’Savigniac, Atreus le Velle, Tor de Barenton, Ares de Gault and Atlas Sauxures. Jax’s six most powerful generals greeted their lord with respect and admiration, giving Amadeo, Caelen, Henley and Michael various methods of greeting. Soon the knights were crossing the dusty bailey, huddled in conversing groups of two and three, mounting the stairs and disappearing into the keep as their respective armies filtered into Pelinom’s bailey and attempted to find a place to settle. As the chaos in the ward grew, the knights inside the keep were settling in for refreshment and serious conference.
Kellington had no idea what was transpiring in the hall above her head. She could hear voices and boots on the overhead planks, but not much more. It sounded like a herd of cattle in her hall and she tried to keep the cook calm as the woman and two female servants dispensed wine into earthenware pitchers. Lavaine was also in the kitchens helping with the great wheels of white cheese. She was carefully cutting off sections and placing them on wooden trays.
“It is as if Hell has opened its gates and all of the demons are spilling forth into Pelinom,” she said as she sliced. “Have you seen these men, Kelli? They are monsters.”
Kellington tried not to feel guilty, thinking of the kisses that she and Jax had shared, knowing the man had killed her friend’s husband. She had been wrestling with those feelings for the better part of a week now. Every time she looked at Lavaine, she felt like a horrible traitor.
“I’ve not seen them,” she said, setting out pitchers of wine to the trays.
“They are demons. Devils. We should burn the keep down around them. We would be doing England a great service if we did so.”
“Shhh,” Kellington shushed her firmly. “Do you want them to hear you? They will kill us all.”
Lavaine looked contrite but not entirely sorry. She had changed over the past two weeks; the death of her son and husband had done something to her and understandably so. She was dark and bitter most of the time. The hysteria she had first expressed had cooled to something self-destructive. Not that Kellington blamed her.
“They are going to kill us anyway,” Lavaine turned back to the cheese. “’Tis only a matter of time. Either that or they will force us to whore for them, in which case I will kill myself anyway. So either way, I am dead.”
Kellington had heard this talk more than once over the past few days. Lavaine was passionate about her hatred.
“Do not speak so,” she
said. “They will not kill us and they will not force us to whore for them. They are on a mission of conquest, not of women.”
Lavaine pointed the knife at one of the kitchen servants. “One of de Velt’s men has already made sport of Luce. Hasn’t he, Luce? He has forced himself upon her repeatedly and there is naught she can do.”
Kellington looked in horror to the small, freckle-faced servant, who was flushed red with shame. “Is this true?” she demanded.
The girl nodded and Kellington became furious. “Why has no one told me?”
“Because you had enough on your mind,” Lavaine told her. “De Velt has you administering his assets for him. You are under enough pressure without added misery.”
Kellington looked at her friend. “Did you make this decision without consulting me? Did you think I would not want to know?”
Lavaine placed the final slice of cheese on the tray. “Perhaps we should poison this food,” she said thoughtfully. “It would solve our problem.”
“Levie,” Kellington snapped. “Stop speaking so. If they hear you, they really will kill us and I will not allow you to condemn us all.”
Lavaine acted as if she had not heard her. She inspected the knife she had just used to slice the cheese. “Then we should serve their food and then turn weapons against them.”
“I will not hear this insanity. You speak pure madness.”
Lavaine looked surprised, then sheepish. Without a proper response, she turned away and put the knife back in the gourd where it was kept. Kellington set the pitcher down and went to her.
“Levie,” she said, more gently. “I know you are in mourning. I understand that. But you must understand that it is my duty to see that we all survive this. You must not say such things to provoke de Velt or his men. They are killers and they will not hesitate to do away with you if they believe you are a threat. Do you understand?”