Page 2 of Within the Hollow Heart

In Nickolas’s ears was the echo of his mother’s words as she’d stood over him while the hired ruffians had prepared to drag him away. “This is for your own good,” she had said coldly. “For the good of the family.”

Nickolas tore a wrist free of his binds, biting back a curse at the chafing of his skin. He was on his feet, yanking the fabric free, unwilling to leave a single scrap that might be used as evidence against him.

“My lord,” a pouting voice called from the doorway. “Don’t tell me you’re attempting to run away.”

Nickolas froze, his back to the woman. He did not turn and did not even look toward the unmistakable sound of Lady Carvell’s voice.

Her steps came closer. “My father paid a good deal for this.”

There was a low sound in her throat, but it was impossible to guess whether it was anticipation at having him caught or displeasure at his attempted escape. Neither boded well.

“To tie you to me.”

Fate save him, the woman had been in on it. She’d not only agreed to the ridiculous plot, but by the sound of it, she’d been eager to marry a man who wanted no part of their scheme. There was a solid chance that when he thought of the scene later, he would be sick. But as he stood, his eyes only scanned the room, searching in the flickering candlelight for any escape.

“Nickolas,” she complained. “It’s too late for that. By sunrise, everyone will know. You might as well make it easy on all of us.”

“My lady,” he said, “this will remain, forevermore, between you, me, and that bedpost.” His gaze landed on his only recourse. “Predictable,” he muttered.

It was the balcony. He should have known; it was always the balcony. Someday, he would be caught in a situation wherein the lady in question lived in a ground-floor room with a dozen windows. Today was not that day.

He rushed toward the doors, thanked every deity he could bring to mind that they weren’t locked, and yanked them open to a moonlit night.

A high-pitched scream rent the air behind him. The rush of footsteps that followed was too fast not to have been anticipating the call. He had been right in his guess that a guard waited just outside. It didn’t make his choice any easier. Nickolas stared over the balcony railing, his stomach dropping. It wasn’t a first-floor room, not even a second. Three stories beneath him waited metal railing, wooden benches, and statuary with more than their fair share of pointy bits. He closed his eyes, vowing to lobby for the installation of more courtyard ponds at the next assembly.

He turned back toward the room, not surprised to find a pair of kingsmen coming through the bedchamber door. What did surprise him, however, was that they were men Nickolas knew—the kingsmen who’d arrested him the last time. Men who had dragged him to a cold, dark cell.

He was done for. The men had thought him guilty of a crime far more dastardly than being in a woman’s bed that day and had promised him very bad things. Should they manage to lay hands on him, Nickolas and the Brigham name were through.

He drew a deep breath, swung his legs over the balcony railing, and plummeted into the cool night air.

CHAPTER2

It was not his finest escape. Nickolas landed unsteadily on a lower stone outcropping, a slanted ledge that, unfortunately, was too slick for proper footing. He slid. He swore.

He fell.

Reaching out, he barely caught hold of a nearby corbel and found his legs swinging with his momentum, then the weight of his body pulled loose his grip. He fell farther, swore again, then crashed against a decorative trellis, where he held on for dear life. It was covered in thorns. Above him, one of the kingsmen shouted.

Below him was a very tall statue of a mostly naked woman atop a rearing horse. He leapt for it and wrapped his arms about the woman’s smooth stone neck. He clambered down the rest of her, pausing only briefly to murmur an apology for his grip on her breast. The horse received no such apology. The moment he reached the base, Nickolas threw himself over the surrounding brush and ran full speed out of the garden.

It was late, but the moon was full, illuminating every pale statue and stone barrier. With growing dread, Nickolas spun and ran at every dead end he met in an endless succession of wrong turns. There seemed to be nothing but walls: high walls, low walls, bench walls, topiary walls, and by the Rive,an obscene number of undressed women on horses framed within the surrounding castle walls. He was panting, heart thundering at every sound that might be the kingsmen in pursuit. If they caught him, it was over. All of it, every comfort and freedom he’d ever known.

His life would be ruined. He would have to put on that he’d been in Lady Carvell’s bedchamber of his own free will and agree to marry her, or he would be thrown into a cell for breaking into her private suite. He was fairly certain either would bring a special kind of punishment. A woman who would so easily agree to having a man stolen and lashed to her bed against his wishes would certainly not be the sort he would want to bind to his name. But there was more to it than that. Nickolas had encountered the family before; he was acquainted with the woman’s father. He knew what the pair were capable of.

A life bound to the Carvell family would be worse than eternity in a dark and lonely cell. At least the kingsmen hadn’t jumped down after him. Their lack of senselessness had won Nickolas a momentary opportunity to secure his freedom. While the kingsmen traversed the Carvell rooms to reach the courtyard—avoiding a blind leap into the night like Nickolas—he had one chance to get out.

If only he could find a cursed door.

He stepped on something sharp, swore again, and stumbled forward past a sweetbriar bush. Had he not been looking over his shoulder, he might have noticed the dark metal on the ground in his path. As it was, he did not. Foot tangling in the wires, Nickolas lost his balance and spun, managing to miss falling flat on his face only by taking the packed earth to his back.

A huff of air escaped his chest the same moment that a soft gasp sounded somewhere beyond his head. He glanced up, toward the midnight sky, and whatever breath he’d meant to steal was lost.

Above him, framed by that sky, a face came slowly into view. The creature stared, visage inverted where she knelt over him on the ground. Wisps of rich brown hair curled around a soft, sweet face made pale by the moonlight, her dark eyes impossibly wide. She was a wight, surely, or a statue come to life, some unearthly being that called to mind stories of magic and fae, a being who might capture one’s—

“There is no escape.”

Her hushed warning cut off whatever his thoughts had been going on about, then the flutter of a dark wing beside Nickolas’s head had him bolting to his feet. The woman reached forward to snatch a small gray bird from his path. Her wide, dark eyes traveled up the length of him, his clothes tattered and torn, flesh bared to the night air at his neck and side. Her perusal came to its eventual conclusion when her gaze reached his. Their eyes locked.

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