Nicole Locke - Her Dark Knight's Redemption

He saw it all though she refused to look at him. Her body convulsed again, worse than before. Great racking contortions as her knees drew up and she curled around herself and the babe.

Reynold did not move, nor did the child. Whatever illness was taking its mother, it had been doing so for a long time. Long enough that it didn’t concern the child. To the babe, the stench, the decay, the coughing was what a mother smelled and sounded like.

‘I told you,’ the woman said, her voice gasping, the coughing, the illness too much for her. ‘I trusted you.’

‘You’re alive, you are, and so is your babe,’ Cilla said.

The woman tried to draw breath. Too weak to protect her child from the servant who could easily pluck her away again. Too ill to protect the child from him. But he watched her push the child across her stomach until it rolled behind her so that it was wedged between her and the bench’s back. As if her prone wasted body could be any sort of a shield against him.

It was possible this child was his. ‘Is it mine?’

The woman never opened her eyes. Her pretending he didn’t exist was her last and only defence against him.

‘Is it mine?’ he repeated.

‘Of course it’s yours,’ Cilla retorted. ‘Little demon’s a year if it’s a day. A year of me waiting in this filth and waiting on this corpse for you to return.’

‘How could you...?’ the noblewoman said.

‘I did what you wanted,’ Cilla said. ‘What you begged so prettily for. What was it again? Not to let anyone know you were sick. Mustn’t let anyone know such common illness affected your noble blood.’

The woman opened her eyes again, not to look at Reynold, but to the servant. ‘I beg you... Save her.’

With hot certainty, Reynold knew it was no longer a possibility. The child was his... For this mother asked not to save the babe from poverty or sickness, but to save the child. From him.

‘Why would I do that?’ Cilla said. ‘He’s here to collect.’

The child... All his life women claimed pregnancy. None of them were true. The noblewoman ignored him, but he needed his answers.

‘How did you know who I was?’

All eyes went 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.