Page 26 of Ella’s Desire

“Are…are you…” His mouth worked without words for a moment. “Are you injured?”

Ella regarded him curiously. “I wasn’t struck. Are you well?”

“Of course.” He looked down at his hands where brilliant red blood smeared across his palms and fingers.

Silence followed, stretched out as Calville continued to stare at his hands in bewilderment and horror. And it all made sense: Bronson had never killed a man before.

So much blood. Bronson couldn’t tear his gaze from the smear of it across his hands, the way it settled like dark wine in the creases of his palm.

“Lord Calville?”

The men’s eyes had gone wide when he plunged his blade into them. Wide and then dull as they ceased to live. What if they had wives at home waiting for them? Children who relied on them?

He had taken the lives of four men.

“Bronson?”

There was a softness to the voice, and it pulled him from his macabre thoughts. Ella watched him with concern pulling at her brows.

“They would have killed us,” she said. “Or at the very least taken us as prisoners and held us for ransom. We would be beaten, and I would most likely…” She shook her head, her face crinkling in disgust, but she didn’t need to fill in the rest for him to understand.

He’d heard stories of the wild Scotsmen who lived on the border. Still, the reminder helped drag him from his daze. He’d taken lessons with the sword when he’d been a boy and he fought often with his fellow-courtiers, though those bouts were done for sport with blades made for appearance rather than purpose.

He was grateful now for the practice he’d gotten doing those mock battles with his friends. If he hadn’t had experience, he would be dead.

He slipped his sword into the sheath and wiped his blood-stained hands on his trews as though he didn’t care. He slid the horror and guilt smoothly behind a courtier’s smile. “We did what we had to. I’d do it again to ensure you were protected.”

Ella studied him. Dots of blood speckled over her face like freckles. “You’ve never killed anyone before, have you?”

“Not many reasons for running someone through with a blade at court.” He winked at her.

Her mouth lifted in a smile. “Life is different here on the border.”

“So it appears.” He clasped his hands together to keep from staring at them, from remembering that awful moment when the first man had died. “The ladies are as well.”

Ella smirked and lowered the bloody head of the axe to the ground. “Aye.”

Bronson nodded his head, pretending to understand completely. But he did not. His mind reeled as he tried to take it all in. Not only had they been attacked, not only had he killed men, but Ella had joined in the battle. Lady Ella, who seemed so petite and delicate, had hefted an axe and slain men with the ferocity of a warrior.

He most certainly was not at court anymore, and this wild new land was filled with surprises. No doubt with even more to come.

That was what worried him.

10

Ella relaxed, her concern for Calville eased by the casual expression on his handsome face. No doubt before today, he’d never used the shiny blade on his hip.

Papa wouldn’t be pleased about him learning of her skills in battle. He’d asked them all to maintain a pretense of ladylike decorum, which was why he had canceled their practices until Calville departed. With Ella, of course.

However, in a situation such as the one she and Calville had just faced, revealing their secret was a far cry better than perishing or being abducted.

Calville indicated her skirt. “I presume that is not your blood on your kirtle.”

“Correct.” Ella slid her hand along her belt and realized she no longer had her dagger. The one she’d thrown at the archer. It had been her favorite, a jeweled thing as fine as it was practical. Marin had used it once when she initially meant to kill Bran all those years ago.

It was a pity to have lost it. She glanced toward the thicket where the archer had been. Perhaps…

She made her way through the brambles and over a sodden layer of undergrowth to where the man had fallen. And where he still laid. She said a quick prayer over his body, the way their priest, Bernard, always did over the dead, and then pulled her dagger free from where it had plunged into his chest.