Free The Mermaid's Knight by Jill Myles

chance to do everything you wanted and more? She didn’t want to die a virgin. She wanted to experience love – or at least lust. And this powerful, sexy man
    wanted her. The feeling was a heady one, and she gave him a faint smile over the rim of her goblet.
    “Do you know the story of this castle, Leah?” He changed tactics on her, staring at the walls around them, his eyes serious and expression grave. “Did you grow up here?” He glanced back at her.
    She remembered Father Andrew’s words and shook her head. It seemed a safe enough answer.
    He nodded agreement, and she let out a tiny breath of relief.
    “Do you know of the FitzWarren name?” He casually brought his goblet to his lips and drank again, his eyes avoiding her.
    She sensed tension in the air, and was more hesitant with her response this time. Again, she shook her head no.
    “It is the name of a bastard.” His fingers gripped the goblet tightly; she could see white around his knuckles. At first, she didn’t grasp his immediate meaning. His father was a creep?
    Then she realized – it was his parentage.
    He was a bastard. Not a jerk, but illegitimate.
    It seemed to bother him quite a bit, too, judging from the clench of his jaw. When she didn’t automatically leap up in disgust, he turned to her, studying her expression. “It doesn’t bother you that the man sitting across from you is of less than noble birth?” Leah shrugged idly. Why should it matter who his parents were?
    He seemed to take a moment to digest this, then continued. “My father and his legal wife had a rather unhappy marriage. I remember she used to slap me whenever I walked past her. My mother had been one of her chambermaids. My father did not want to claim me as his heir, but
    when ten years passed and he had no children by his wife, he legitimized me and named me heir to Northcliffe.”
    He paused, thinking hard. “It was shortly before I was to be sent away to squire when Baron Rutledge took over our castle. It seemed that my father had insulted him at a nearby tourney in front of the king, and Baron Rutledge decided to get his revenge by taking Northcliffe, which was rich with goods at the time.”
    Another pause and he studied her before he took another drink of wine. “I don’t recall much about that night, but I do remember seeing Rutledge standing over my father. I remember my father begging for mercy and Rutledge laughing in his face. I remember that he took a very long time to kill my father.”
    A sick feeling grew in Leah’s stomach.
    “I can still hear the screams as Rutledge systematically went through the castle and began to slaughter all that did not bow a knee to him immediately. He slaughtered my father’s wife. My mother.” The grim line of his lips tightened. “I escaped with my younger sister. We knew of a secret passageway and hid there. We escaped to the village the next day. Baron Rutledge found us there.” Very calmly, he placed his wine goblet down and gestured at her food. “You are not eating, Leah.” His eyes were intent on her own.
    She raised a hand weakly and shook her head. She couldn’t eat while listening to his tale, as if it were nothing.
    “Rutledge found my sister. We had both hidden from him – I with the blacksmith and she with the herbalist. She ran out, screaming, when he set the herbalist’s hut on fire and they ran her through.”
    Leah put a hand to her mouth, shaking her head.
    “I hid in that stack of hay for two days, until the blacksmith forced me to come out. He fed me and sent me on my way with instructions to go to one of my father’s friends, the man I was to squire with. Lord Bowland kept me hidden until I was of an age to seek out my own revenge.”
    The anger and strength was back in his voice, and he ignored her, turning his face toward the window and staring out it without seeing anything. “It was a long time before I became a knight. Longer still until I made my fortune on the tourney circuit, but I