still untouched on the table. One of his men, grinning, opened the door and closed it behind them and, with the sound of its slam against the frame, Ebony knew that, once again, her worst nightmares had returned.
Her strongest instinct was to give in to the blind panic that engulfed her, to scream, bite, kick and fight against the overwhelming fear of losing her child. Utterly consumed by a nameless black terror that saturated her limbs with the strength of ten, she lashed out like one demented. Even so, her efforts made very little impression upon the solid bulk of the man who held her painfully hard against the stone wall of the deserted passageway with his hands, body and legs, keeping his head out of range of her only free weapon.
He let her fury subside and gradually wind down to a standstill, and she knew at the back of her tormented mind that the time had come for something other than mere appeals to their better natures, for they were not in the business of concessions. Tears streamed down her face and neck, sticking her loosened hair to her skin, and her head dropped forward onto his padded doublet, too heavy for her to hold up. ‘My son…my son…’ was all she had breath to say. ‘I cannot lose him.’
At last, she became aware of his body pressing against hers, and perhaps it was that that helped to remind her that she had hardly looked at this man, would hardly have recognised him if she were to see him again. Now, she raised her head and saw through her tears that he was clean-shaven, that he was regarding her impassively, that his mouth was well formed and unsmiling, and that his air of healthy virility might have had something to do with his white teeth, which showed as he spoke to her.
‘Steady,’ he said. ‘Steady now. Your son’s safe enough, but I need a hostage. He need not be gone for ever.’
She shook her head wildly. ‘No, not him! He’s all I’ve got.’
‘He’s the only grandson?’
‘Yes,’ she wailed, ‘and he’s my only child, too. If you must take him, then take me with him. He cannot do without me, nor can I do without him.’
‘I don’t take women.’ His tone was brutally uncompromising.
Then what would he take? Could she bribe him? Shame him? The master-at-arms had shown her once how to use a dagger, but today she had seen no need to wear one. She would not make that mistake again. Sardonically, he had also advised her that, if ever the need arose, she should offer reivers anything she possessed to buy herself time, or life. Any currency, he had stressed. Bargain with them. Life is more important, he’d told her, not needing to explain what life was more important than. His advice at the time had seemed to be a particularly masculine way of looking at things, though now the gravity of what she knew she must offer seemed trifling in comparison to her need. ‘Please…please, you must,’ she whispered, forcing herself to look at his eyes to show him what she was saying.
‘Must?’ he said. ‘What are you saying, exactly?’
‘I’m saying,’ she said, looking away, ‘that you can…’
‘Can what?’
‘…can have me…whatever you will…if you’ll only let me go with him, or leave him here with me. I beg you not to take him from me.’ The words sounded as foreign to her as if coming from someone else’s lips, and he was silent for so long that she began to wonder if indeed she had said them. Yet it needed an effort of will, after that, to look into his eyes. ‘Unless…unless there is something else?’ she ventured, hearing the absurdity of her question. What else did she have that such a man could possible make use of?
The pressure on her wrists was suddenly released and her hands, freed of his cruel grip, fell numbed to her sides. His body arched away from her as he leaned with his hands on the wall at each side of her head, making a barrier too large and powerful to evade, though it seemed likely that her offer had now passed the stage of evasions.
She noticed how fine lines scored the corners of his mouth—made, she supposed, by commands and a life out of doors—and she had little doubt that, if he had indeed understood the nature of the bargain, he would be weighing up the implications, for there was a wealth of experience in the eyes that roamed leisurely over her face and figure. If there was triumph or greed in his expression, then he was hiding it well. Nevertheless, his hesitation mortified her.
‘I see,’ he said. ‘So we are bargaining, are we?’ His eyes rested upon hers at last, searching behind the tears.
She resolved to have strong words with the master-at-arms for initiating this charade. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, looking away. ‘It’s all I have. It’s worthless compared to my bairn’s life, but it’s yours if you want it. You see, I have lost my shame.’ Which was a lie he would hardly recognise.
‘Your bairn’s life is not at stake, lady. He’s a surety against reprisals. Quite a prize. So have you been used to offering yourself—’ his words were interrupted as her hands came up between them to rake savagely at his face, but her wrists were caught again and twisted away behind her back ‘—to reivers?’ he finished.
‘No, sir!’ she snarled, glaring up at his laughing eyes and incensed by the insult. ‘The gift I kept for my late husband will always be his, no matter who else must be paid off. You could have claimed to be the first, for all the good it would do you, but I’ll not offer it again to have its value questioned so. You are a reiver and not worth the breath it takes, nor will you ever know what it has cost me to offer my body to a common thief and murderer. Forget it! I did it for my child, not for your amusement.’
‘Yet only just now you told me it was worth little,’ he said, softly, holding her close to him. ‘Is there some confusion here, perhaps?’
‘Not to a woman. Worth and cost are not the same thing, but that’s not something a man like you would understand too easily.’
‘That’s as may be. Yet I am inclined to accept the offer. Does it still stand?’
Now it was her turn to hesitate as the enormity of the bargain began to grow and fill her with dread. She would have to go to bed with this stranger, or to allow him some appalling intimacy here in the passageway, whichever he had more time for. The consequences could well be disastrous, too awful to think about. She had been near no man except Robbie, for three years remaining completely uninterested in any man’s arms except during the darkest hours of the night when she wept into the pillow. This man would care as little for her lost experience as for her conscience, her reputation, or the long-term effects.
‘Well?’ he said.
She took a deep breath, closing her mind to everything except the need to be with her child. ‘You will allow Sam and me to stay together? Wherever you take us?’
‘The safety of your child and your access to him will depend entirely on my access to you. At all times. Do you understand me, my lady?’
Shocked, she looked up to search for a trace of the laughter that would explain his demand. But there was no laughter, only the hard blue steel. ‘At all times? Not…not just once?’
‘Not once, no. For as long as I want you. Is your son worth that to you?’
The breath left her lungs in a shudder, leaving her cold and numb. Put like that, she had little choice but to accept that, if she wanted Sam at her side, she must stay by this man’s side, literally, and without argument. ‘Yes, he is!’ she said. ‘And you, sir, are a devil!’
‘Then we have a bargain, do we?’
