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to him.
‘You don’t...remember me?’ she said.
No rejection in her reedy voice, only the slight sound of victory.
‘Your man...a carriage.’
He always hired a man. A temporary hire, for a temporary solution. He found a woman who would suit his needs, found a man for hire to procure her and bring her to an awaiting carriage.
All his women were done this way. A protection for him, a protection for them. This significant memory of hers provided no more information for him.
‘You couldn’t have known who I was,’ he said. ‘Who told you? Who—?’
‘It stinks and I don’t need to stay,’ Cilla interrupted. ‘It’s her, you know that now. You know that’s your babe—I want what’s my due.’ She laughed a cruel greed. Gleeful that her plan for great wealth had paid off. ‘I brought the happy family together. Don’t I deserve something?’
He’d forgotten the wretch was in the room. With his spare hand, Reynold brought his purse to the front. Let the full weight of it sound as he jangled the coins. It was heavy. He’d purposefully filled it to the brim.
The woman’s eyes bulged. For him, this wasn’t but convenient coin. The enamel gold box at his home was worth more than his purse, but she wasn’t a smart villain. Not smart at all, because she had threatened him.
‘I said I’d reward you amply. I came prepared.’
‘’Cause I spoke the truth,’ she said, her eyes remaining on the purse, not on the blade he hid in the folds of his cloak.
He walked slowly to her, raised the purse so it raised her eyes and exposed her neck. Her hands reached—and then...something that he had never done before. Something he was unprepared for: he hesitated.
The servant registered the blade and attacked with outstretched claws across his cheek. Feeling the sting, he turned the hilt and struck her across the head.
She collapsed to the floor like another bloodied rag. He stared at her incredulously as her chest rose and fell, as blood trickled from her temple. He hadn’t killed her. He always killed them.
The woman on the bench gasped. Another flinch, another prostrating of her body, this time towards the child propped up between the bench and her. She truly was trying to protect the child.
‘Please,’ she pleaded. ‘Don’t.
He turned the hilt, aimed the dagger towards the deceitful servant. Willed his hand to complete the deed. For his own survival, he shouldn’t leave witnesses. But he couldn’t do it. Angry, he whirled on the other woman, but his eyes went to the babe.
Was it because of this child he held his hand?
‘Don’t take the child?’ he bit out. ‘You think I want her?’ At some point, they all begged and pleaded with him for mercy. He never gave it. He shouldn’t be giving it now.
Walking away was still an option. He could tie the servant up, drag her to some more disreputable area of town with coin in her lap. Let the vultures there complete what he should have done.
The noblewoman looked soon for the grave and the child, far too young to escape this tomb of a house, would die, too. He should leave. Instead he asked questions.
‘What can I tie her with?’
Her brows drew in. ‘There might be...tassels, by the curtains.’
Did she not see the condition of the house? No tassels were left. But the worn curtains he ripped clear across, the fraying silk tearing easily. Used correctly, it would suffice to immobilise the servant.
Pointing at the servant, he said, ‘Does she know who I am?’
The woman gave a small shake.
‘Does. She. Know?’
‘I don’t know how she found you. I never wanted her to find you. I never wanted my child to be yours. You don’t deserve—’ She gasped for breath. Slumped. Her eyes closed. He watched her chest still for a moment before beginning again. When she opened her eyes, they were mere slits.
She couldn’t finish her words, but he understood all the same. That she didn’t want him to discover the child, that he didn’t deserve her.
How would she know he deserved no one? Who told her who his family was? Whoever it was had to die as well. ‘Who are you?’
‘Handmaiden,’ she whispered.
To the Queen. She was as high born as possible without being a ruler herself. He knew she must have some noble blood, had figured her for an unwanted bastard. But she had been more. She had been one of the influential ones and she had fallen to this?
More importantly, if she was close to the Queen, she knew his family. Knew his wealth, his power, knew everything.
He grabbed the gown of the servant, who jerked awake. Her eyes, registering his presence, widened before she fought him. ‘Cease!’ he ordered.
She clawed at his hands, kicked. Laughed. ‘Hit me, did you? You’ll pay for that.’
He dragged her to the iron railing. ‘I’ll pay for nothing.’
‘Cilla,’ the noblewoman whispered.
He grasped her hands to tie the ripped silk curtain around her wrists.
‘You’ll pay,’ Cilla sneered. ‘You’ll pay or your daughter will never be safe from—’
The slice across the servant’s neck was clean, precise. A mere splattering of her blood and it was over. His hand holding the dagger remained steady as he wiped the blood off with the servant’s gown.
The woman on the bench was silent, but Reynold felt her shocked eyes on him. Knew the child was awake and watching him as well.
‘You knew all along who I was,’ he said, sheathing the dagger and standing to his full height. His eyes stayed only on the corpse at his feet as a familiar weariness overtook him. He was so tired of killing.
‘I...’ she said. He swung his gaze to hers. They widened in fear as they should. He didn’t care what she saw in his eyes. She wouldn’t live long enough to tell.
‘I saw...you at court,’ she said, licking her lips. ‘Then in the carriage.’
No one had told her who he was...and she had told no one who he was. Even as she carried his child. While she couldn’t earn coin, while she grew sick. A hint to his family and that child, squashed between her rotting body and the mouldy bench, would have been used against him.
Everyone was alive, so he knew she had told no one of this child because she didn’t want anyone to know it was... It was—
Two steps over and he snatched the child. No cries, no sounds. Was it mute? Was it deaf? It was aware, as he was in that moment. Dim light, but enough to see what he thought he never would. Grey eyes. Black hair. A girl by all accounts. But his.
His.
An almost keening sound burst from deep in his chest. One he barely held in check. But the emotion was there and it flooded him, made his knees weak and he locked them tight. If he fell.... Below his feet was the blood of sickness and human waste.
His child wouldn’t touch any of this. Shouldn’t be touching him, but he couldn’t let her go. Now that he held her, now that he knew the truth. That hope, that longing, coiled around his blackened heart. Everything within him changed.
His.
This child...this child was vulnerable. To him, to the elements, to his family. To the sickness saturated into the air they breathed.
‘Foolish woman!’
He could kill her for risking his life, for risking his child’s. Was his reputation so horrific she thought this