Page 23 of Marin’s Promise

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Bran knew Marin didn't want him to look through the accounts. It was evident in the snap of her hem at her ankles as she strode onward in an angry march. As much as he knew he had to see the accounts to ensure the castle continued to run without issue, going through the earl's personal effects left him discomfited.

She pushed through the door and led him to the desk. Ella lay curled on the window seat, her head bent over yet another book. This one had a blue cover with gold paint scrolling up along its spine. She didn't bother to look up as they entered.

Marin swept a bit of hair from Ella's eye, the way a mother might do to a child. “Is the light sufficient?”

“Mmm…” Ella murmured. Then her head snapped up and her blue eyes went wide. “Marin.” She leapt to her feet with her finger carefully pinched in the book’s pages and threw her arms around her sister. “You've been freed?”

“Depends,” Bran said.

They both turned toward him, smiles fading.

He braced his hand over the polished top of the desk. “I need compliance.”

Marin touched her sister's shoulder. “Please leave us, Ella.”

“Mayhap I—”

Marin nudged her toward the door and Ella cast a regretful look back at him before leaving the room. The door clicked closed.

“I know ye dinna want to do this,” he said.

Marin shot him a sharp glare. “Do you?”

He hardened his resolve against her ire. “The accounts.”

“It's there.” She pointed to the second drawer. The one where he'd found the book Ella had deemed he’d mistreated and taken from the solar.

“Ella has it,” he countered. “She took it the other day.”

Marin frowned. “That's ridiculous. It never leaves this drawer.” She pulled the drawer and bent over it, her fingers graceful as they gently sifted through the parchments and vellum within. Her delicate lavender scent rose around him, teasing and alluring.

She wore a modest veil over her fair hair. While it looked lovely on her, he much preferred her hair uncovered, the unbound strands flowing and free for him to stroke. Though their time alone had been brief, he remembered too well the softness of her skin, the silky coolness of her hair. He could all too easily see himself laying abed with her, playing his fingers over those golden locks in a moment of post-coital reverence.

Oblivious to his thoughts, she rose and looked at the desk's barren surface. “You're correct. It appears to be missing.” She put a hand to her hip. “Why would Ella have taken it?”

He wanted to pull the veil off her head and let the little circlet fall to the ground. He needed her in his arms, making those lusty moans she had the night before, her slender body arching in helpless abandon against him. “She said I wasna treating a book properly.”

Marin smiled secretly to herself. “Aye, that sounds like Ella.”

Bran found his gaze drifting to Marin's pink mouth and he imagined his thumb between her lips, the shy, curious way she’d suckled the digit. “We can reclaim it and speak to the steward,” he suggested.

Though it was not truly what he’d wanted to suggest. He didn’t like this hard Marin, the one who treated him with contempt and ire. Nay, he wanted the woman last night, the seductress who was surprised at her own enjoyment of their light play.

Her sweet mouth thinned with agitation. “Why is it you wish to speak to the steward, to discover everything you’ve gained in your capture of Werrick Castle?”

“That isna it.”

“What is it then?” She lifted her head defiantly and the gold circlet around her head winked in the light shining in through the leaded glass window.

If he told her he was securing the castle for the Kerr warden, she would no doubt fight him even more than she did now. Nay, this lass did not have cause to know the true plan. He merely required her assistance, which she already had promised.

His gut twisted with unease. He hated this using of women, forcing them into compliance. More than anything, he hated being at the beck and call of a privileged noble. His life, and that of Ena’s, was expendable and exploitable.

“I need yer support,” he answered finally.

The skin around Marin’s eyes tightened, giving her a shrewd appearance. Even shrewd, she was still bonny.