Hola, Weekend Writing Warriors, friends, and followers! It’s my anniversary weekend. Mr. Pierce and I have been married for seventeen years. (At least one of us deserves sainthood for that.) So I may be lax on making the WeWriWa rounds today.
I wanted to post this little snippet as a counterpoint to Bartholomew’s harsh words for Matilde last week. This follows a few pages after that confrontation. Bartholomew has learned that a disturbing dream had roused Matilde from bed and sent her searching through the books in his study.
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Matilde suddenly threw her arms around his waist and pressed her face to his chest. “Please don’t die.”
For a heartbeat, Bartholomew looked down at his ward then he wrapped his arms around her and murmured, “It was just a dream, ma chérie.”
She nodded against him. “It felt so real, and so awful.”
“Just a dream.” He caught her shoulders, eased her back, and leaned down to look into her eyes. “I’m fighting fit, Matilde, and too stubborn to die.”
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Okay, so the truth of that last sentence is a bit complicated, but she can find that out later. Thanks for stopping by and leaving comments. You guys, as always, are awesome. And please remember to check out the other WeWraWri participating blogs here.
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“What kind of treachery have you foisted upon your long-suffering guardian, child?”
Ewan, Claire’s oldest and most dangerous ravener, stepped into the night and leaned over the balcony rail. He looked left and right, frowned, and then straightened. Besting Bartholomew’s six-plus feet by several inches, Ewan was a Scottish brute with cropped chestnut hair and a scar running from ear to ear across his face—a gift from Bartholomew. He shrugged out of his black frock coat, dropping it upon the balcony and leaving dark streaks on the clean laundry. Ewan swiped both sides of a blade clean with his tongue, returned it to its sheath, then hopped over the rail to the alley below.
He closed his eyes and remembered returning to his wife after a long campaign in Barbaricum. How she had bared her body to him, opened herself to his need, and taken all of his longing. She had never asked about the scars he bore; he was a soldier, a Gaul, a warrior. Scars were part of his history, and she’d said they warned of his strength to any man who would question his power.
“Do you see how the older men adore me?” She paused to smooth the front of her blue walking suit, her fingers making a languorous trek down her bust. “They are my favorites.” She looked up at Barnes then met Bartholomew’s gaze and said, “Do you know why, Barnes?”
“The fight was fairly won,” Mr. Vernon said as he buffed one of Monsieur’s tan toothpicks. He glanced up at Matilde, a smile quirking his lips, and added, “If you consider a thirty pound advantage fair.” He swiped his rag over the shoe, frowned, and went to work on its tapered toe.
