Marin's Promise (Borderland Ladies Book 1) Read online

  Marin gritted her teeth at the rapacious gleam in Bran’s eyes. Her stomach churned with disgust.

  “It would appear you have what it is you came for,” she bit out.

  “Ye have no idea what it is I’ve come for.” His gleaming gaze did not stray from the pile of her father’s wealth.

  “Aye, you will not tell me.” She slammed closed the lid, unable to take for even a moment longer the avarice practically glowing around him. “Though I’m certain this is close to what it is you wanted. A life gleaned off the earnings of other men.”

  Bran snapped his stare to her. “’Tis a fine thing to say from a woman who hasna ever known hardship.”

  Her eyes glinted. “I’ve known hardship.” She’d borne her own woes like an anchor in her soul, keeping her leashed to this place and its people.

  “Ye know what it is to go to bed at night with yer gut gnawing with hunger, then?” he demanded. “Or to no’ even know where it is ye’ll rest yer head, or if ye’ll have the benefit of a roof over yer head.”

  “Not all suffering is caused by a lack of funds, Bran.” Her cheeks went hot with rage. “In fact, some has been caused by people who were set on taking that which does not belong to them.” She lowered her voice to a dangerous whisper, the way her father did when he was truly enraged. “Do not think you know me, or my life, based on your own assumptions.”

  Bran’s eyes narrowed. “Mind yerself, lass, or ye’ll be in the dungeon once more.”

  William slowly rose from his own chair, a dagger trembling in his grip, aimed in Bran’s direction. “L-l-leave her a-a-alone.”

  It was all Marin could do to keep from putting herself between Bran and her would-be protector. William had suffered his own terrible fate when his wife had died in childbirth with their stillborn son. Yet when the Grahams had attacked, he had gone to the great hall to defend the women and children gathered there. It had nearly cost him his life when he was struck down, yet his efforts had saved countless lives. The man’s body was not that of a warrior, though he had the heart of one to be sure.

  Bran’s eyes closed with what appeared to be measured patience, or mayhap regret. “William,” he said in a tired voice. “Please, dinna do this.”

  “I c-c-can’t l-l-let—”

  The door flew open and a large man filled the doorway, thick with muscle, black eyes devoid of any emotion. He marched across the open space like a predator. He was on poor William in an instant, twisting the older man’s wrist so that the blade dropped with a clank to the floor. The marauder shifted his gaze to Bran, as if awaiting further instruction.

  “Take his blade and let him go.” Bran sighed heavily.

  The tension in Marin’s shoulders drained away. William had always been kind. He was a good man. If he’d been killed on her behalf, she never would have forgiven herself.

  Drake released William and retrieved the blade in a stealthy move. The steward rubbed at his freed wrist; his jaw locked with dejection.

  Marin knew well the feeling of impotence caused by defeat. Its impact had stung since the day she’d been forced to allow Bran into Werrick’s fortified gates.

  “Drake, have a look at this.” Bran shoved open the chest once more.

  Her father’s wealth glinted within. Not all of it, of course. There was far more than that. It was their good fortune the marauders were too obtuse to guess as much.

  Drake glanced within, his eyes glittering in the firelight. Marin’s insides twisted. More greed. It was unbearable, truly.

  Bran reached a hand in and drew out a fistful. “Get yer Ma a new roof, lad, and see those sisters of yers get a decent meal, aye?”

  He held the bounty toward Drake, who did not move from his militaristic stance. His jaw worked and he dragged his gaze from the pile of coin. “I canna accept that.” His words were crisp like that of an Englishman with a lilt of Scottish burr.

  “Ye will accept.” Bran pushed a fisted handful of coins into a bag at Drake’s waist. Not once, but thrice.

  Drake shook his head. “It’s too much. It isna ours.”

  At least one of them had a conscience. Marin would spare his life later.

  “Take it,” Bran said with finality. “That’s an order. For yer family.”

  Drake’s jaw set and he slid his gaze from where Marin sat, observing her father’s wealth being passed from thief to thief, however unintending the latter may be.

  “Ye do this for yer ma and sisters.” Bran clapped him on the back. “Remember that.”

  Drake turned to Marin then and nodded, as if she had given him the coin of her own volition. “This will get my family through the winter, my lady. Thank ye.”

  It was impertinent. But it was also respectful and thoughtful.

  Marin slid a glance to William and found him watching the exchange between the two with a private smile, one he dropped immediately once he noticed Marin’s attention on him.

  “Now I need ye to do something,” Bran said to the young warrior.

  Marin smirked. Here it was, a terrible request. After all, nothing good came without a cost.

  Drake snapped to attention, a ready soldier. “Of course.”

  Bran turned to regard Marin, his face cold despite the generous act he’d just done for his fellow reiver. “I need ye to take Lady Marin to the dungeon.”

  8

  Bran had made several mistakes when he’d decided to take Werrick Castle. The first of which, obviously, had been assuring everyone they would not be hurt. The second had been underestimating Werrick’s five daughters, especially Marin.

  In truth, he did not like leaving her in the dungeon, especially when he would much rather have her in his bed. But the dungeon served as a lesson for her attempts to murder him, and for being so obstinate.

  It was a pity, though. He hadn't had a woman raise that kind of passion in him in some time. Perhaps ever. She was wild, unpredictable and exhilarating, like trying to contain lightning in his hand.

  The lass was stubborn though, and strong, and sensual and powerful. And so damn beautiful. His cock echoed his words with a steady pulse of approval. Aye, he wanted her in a fierce way, to claim as his.

  If only she were not so fixated on seeing him dead.

  The rest of the day passed in relative calm with his men contented enough to maintain peace with the inhabitants of Werrick. He knew keeping the reivers from getting bored would be a difficult task, especially with the thrill of the capture complete. Their security had been established, food was plentiful, and every man had a clean, dry place to sleep. Their needs were met, and the excitement had passed.

  The reivers were not bound to him by blood and were mercurial by nature, with little loyalty. How long could he maintain peace at Werrick?

  The sun had set long before he finally made his way to his room. Attempting to see to affairs of the castle was an arduous task, one made doubly difficult without Marin’s assistance. The door to his room stood unguarded, the two reivers stationed there having abandoned their post.

  Bran groaned. Their comfort had already begun to steer them from duty, and toward drink and revelry. He couldn't blame them. His own body raged for release in a way his fist couldn't allay. Not after having kissed Marin, not after feeling her body and tasting her passion.

  The door to his room stood ajar, but he was unconcerned. With the bulk of the coin currently in the chest locked within the floor beneath William’s great desk, even if someone had entered his room, they'd find naught but the earl’s belongings.

  He pushed the door the rest of the way open, strode in and froze. There in the semi-dark stood exactly the woman he'd been thinking of only moments before.

  Marin.

  He didn’t think of how she had gotten there, or why she was there, or even if this might be some nefarious ploy. Nay, his mind went blank and his prick went hard. Need. He needed her.

  Marin was in his room and by God, he would have her.

  Firelight shone behind her, putting her face in s
hadows, a face he knew so damn well. She’d removed her kirtle and wore only a chemise, which had gone translucent against the backdrop of the flames and left her curvy body outlined in tantalizing detail. Only a scant layer of fine linen would lay between his hands and her warm, naked skin.

  “Bran.” Her voice came out as a coquettish purr, in a way she'd never spoken to him before.

  His feet continued forward, bringing him to her. Her fingers played lightly over the hollow of her collarbone. She peered up at him and he stopped short.

  This woman was not Marin.

  “You took a long time to come upstairs.” Anice gave a pretty pout. She drew a graceful hand down the length of her hair.

  “I've been lonely.” Anice bit her lip and thrust her breasts forward. Her nipples were hard beneath the thin white fabric.

  The memory of Marin’s pert little nubs straining the glossy silk of her dress rose in his mind.

  Anice stepped toward him and boldly placed her hands on his hips. “Marin didn't satisfy you, did she?” Her hands slipped over his chest and then ran down his back as she pressed her body to him. “I could.”

  She was ready and willing. The kind of woman Bran enjoyed. And yet, Marin had implied Anice was a maiden, as readily as she had indicated she herself was not. Bran had no mind for maidens.

  And damn him, he could not clear Marin from his thoughts. The way she fought him left his blood boiling in a mix of frustration and rage and sexual need so that they all blended together in an indecipherable mix of searing passion.

  “Get to bed,” Bran said.

  Anice slipped her hands away from his body and turned toward his bed.

  “Yer own,” he amended.

  She regarded him with incredulity. “You don't want me?”

  “I've had it with the lot of ye meddlesome daughters of the warden.” He folded his arms over his chest. “Ye rich lasses think ye own the world and every man in it.”

  Anice remained where she stood. “Release my sister.”

  Ah, and there it was. Bran scoffed. “Would ye have tried to kill me too?”

  The coquettish expression transformed into one of smugness. “I’d have done whatever necessary to see my sister safe.”

  How flattering.

  These women would be the death of him, either through a successfully plotted murder or by driving him utterly mad with their scheming.

  He pointed his finger toward the door. “Get out now if ye ever want to see yer sister alive again.”

  Anice lifted her mantle from where she’d draped it over a chair and pulled it to her shoulders as she spun away in a wave of blonde hair. Without another word, she stomped from his room.

  He waited for the slap of her bare feet to dissipate before he locked the door and wearily approached the bed. Hopefully snakes hadn't been put beneath the furs, or poison poured atop his pillow, or any other horrors the daughters of Werrick might have concocted.

  But at this point, he was just too tired to bother with any of it. He climbed over the feather mattress. The blanket beneath the furs was decadently thick. He slid under the finest linen sheets, cool and welcoming.

  The plush mattress cradled his weight in wealth and luxury. The delicate scent of lavender and meadowsweet rose around him. His eyes fell closed.

  Catriona’s face rose in his mind. Her eyes were wide with fear, her cry to Marin to let her die. Another face swam up from his memory, another voice pleading for death to save the ones they loved.

  His mother, with her long dark hair tangled in the fist of the reivers. The beast of a man with his blade to her throat. Ena’s voice ringing out to kill her instead, and Gregor charging.

  He opened his eyes rather than let his mind play out the rest of the memory.

  He would not go through such loss again. No matter how difficult, he would succeed with Werrick. He would not let Ena die.

  Marin paced her cell like a caged beast. Every moment that dragged on brought thoughts of her sisters, of their compromised safety. And her anger grew.

  She had failed them. Her hesitation to kill Bran could cost them all their lives. He had sworn he would not hurt them and then he had put a knife to William’s throat. William, of all people. The kindest, most generous man who aided the poor in the village with his earnings and had been so terribly brave in trying to protect her.

  She had failed.

  The words echoed in the beating of her heart and hammered through her soul.

  She had done them all a horrible wrong. Mistake after mistake, all ones her father would never have made.

  “Your father would be proud of everything you've done, my lady.”

  The familiar voice startled Marin from the downward pull of her self-castigation. She stopped pacing and shook her head. Her jaw ached from clenching it.

  “He would be,” Sir Richard continued. “You kept Lady Catriona safe and you nearly sacrificed yourself for your people. He will also be glad you didn't succeed in getting yourself killed.”

  Marin frowned. Her efforts had only put the entire castle in danger. There was no way out of this predicament. She'd combed over the cell, testing every stone for anything loose, kicking at the ground to possibly uncover the beginnings of a hole she might dig.

  As with everything in Werrick Castle, the dungeon was soundly built.

  A giggle sounded in the hall outside the dungeon followed by the murmurings of a feminine voice.

  “Of course,” the woman’s flirtatious voice echoed. “If you were here, I'd make sure you had bread and cheese too.”

  Anice appeared then, a flickering candle clutched in one hand and a platter of food in the other. The coy smile still teased the corners of her mouth. Piquette lumbered along at her side.

  “Oh, Marin.” Anice rushed to the cell and the white of her chemise flashed between the partings of a hastily-donned mantle.

  Marin's blood went cold at Anice's state of partial undress. “Did they hurt you?” Marin reached for her sister with a desperate hand, hating the iron keeping her restrained. “Has something happened?”

  Piquette settled on the ground near Marin’s cage and slid a glance toward the tray.

  Anice took Marin's hand in the cradle of hers. “You're so cold, Sister.” She looked at the cell and grimaced. “And it's so filthy.”

  “Did they hurt you?” Marin repeated, her voice stern.

  Anice's attention returned to her and she shook her head. She took a heel of bread and a slab of cheese from the tray where Piquette had begun to sniff and offered them to Marin.

  Marin ignored the food and gestured to her sister's chemise. “What is this? What's happened?”

  “It's nothing–it’s not as it appears.” Anice flipped her hair over her shoulder. “But I got this.”

  She pressed something cool and hard into Marin's palm. Some kind of metal. Marin looked down and found a key within her hand.

  “For the dungeon.” Anice gave a proud smile.

  Marin's joy was short-lived when she remembered who had the key. The only key. Bran. “How did you get this?”

  Anice shrugged with a little grin.

  Fear jabbed through Marin for Anice's maidenhead, for the welfare of her younger sister. Would her betrothed still take her if she were compromised? “What happened?”

  Anice rolled her eyes. “Nothing. I tried to seduce him, to free you. It didn't work.” She lifted one shoulder. “I ran my hands over his hips in an attempt to persuade him and slipped the key out.”

  Marin eyed her sister warily. “That is all? He didn’t…touch you?”

  “Nay. That was all.” Anice leaned closer, her eyes sparkling in the candlelight. “Though he is strong, and quite fine looking.”

  Marin didn't reply. How could she protest such bold statements when she herself agreed with Anice’s assessment of the man?

  She’d been listening to her guards, waiting for one of them to mention the bounty waiting within William’s work room. Yet not one had mentioned the coin.
/>   They didn’t know. The man Bran had called Drake had kept his newfound wealth a secret. Mayhap he was loyal, and mayhap he did need the coin for his family.

  Marin shook her head. “You are safe, then?” she asked her sister.

  Anice nodded distractedly and pushed the food toward Marin a second time. “Within the hour, there will be a guard change.” Her tone had changed from the lightness of a girlish joy to the seriousness of a plan in action. “We can supplement their guards with our own, the ones who have remained hidden.”

  Marin straightened and tightened her grip on the key. “You’ve spoken with them?” She glanced toward the cells across from hers, where most of her army stood.

  “Aye. They will take the place of these guards. We will have the opportunity to slip from the dungeon without detection, and easily out of the castle through the secret passage.”

  Their father had commissioned the hidden tunnel after the first attack on Werrick, accessed through the larder beneath the wine stores. From there, it ran under the castle and came out in the woods through an iron grate.

  Marin always wore the key to that hidden entry on her person, in a locket on her belt. Even if someone could find the metal gate and somehow wrest it open, the tunnel broke off in different directions beneath the castle. If the intruder didn’t identify the correct tunnel, they could wander about forever without finding their way into the keep. The entrance had been masked by a trap door at the top, stained to appear as part of the earthen ceiling. If one didn’t know where to look, it would never be found.

  Aye, the passage would be the perfect escape.

  “I know exactly what to do,” Marin said resolutely.

  “I knew you would.” Anice smiled. “Enjoy your food, dear sister,” she said with more volume to her voice. “I do hope they release you soon. It’s so dank and awful in here.” Her lip curled with sincerity.

  “Thank you for thinking of me,” Marin replied with equal volume. This was a second chance. Another opportunity to save them all.

  Anice's hand squeezed Marin's, and with that, she and Piquette were gone, taking with them the glowing light of the candle. Marin’s world plunged into a sea of black once more.